


we're not lovers, we're just strangers

by bechloehuh, eliseboobman (bechloehuh)



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Drug Use, F/F, Family Member Death, Smoking, Summer AU, this is kinda dark im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-11-18 03:19:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 34,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11282715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bechloehuh/pseuds/bechloehuh, https://archiveofourown.org/users/bechloehuh/pseuds/eliseboobman
Summary: If she gets closer to Chloe, she’ll find out. And she can’t risk Chloe finding out because she will lose her, and God, she can’t lose the only good thing in her life right now.She wonders whether that’s possible; to lose someone she doesn’t have.





	1. part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Content warning for this chapter: Smoking and drug abuse
> 
> I started this months ago. It was originally going to be a one shot but it got too long so i've just turned it into a multi chapter. there'll only be like 3 or 4 chapters though. there also won't be a year in between updates so enjoy
> 
> my tumblr is chloebeale if u wanna talk to me abt this or any of my au's

_“and so it all boils down to this / we've got our aim but we might miss / we are too fragile just to guess / and I've been in this place before / fine as we are but we want more / that's human nature at its best / what if we ruin it all, and we love like fools? / and all we have we lose? / I don't want you to go but I want you so / so tell me what we choose / friends, I watched us as we changed / the feelings in my headspace rearranged / I want you more than I've wanted anyone / Isn't that dangerous?”_ – fools, lauren aquilina

* * *

Walking through the woods at five in the morning probably isn’t Beca’s brightest decision, but it gets her out of the house and that’s all she needs right now.

Her mind is racing, trying to come up with any ideas for her book. There’s not usually much going on in her head at 5AM most days, save for the constant stream of songs she has blasting through her headphones to block out the sound of the silence. But today she’s being deafened by nothing but her own mind, because the woods are the quietest place in this town.

It’s always quiet.

She has her headphones around her neck, the volume almost on full so she can still hear the song – a Nu-Disco mix she had found browsing SoundCloud the other day – as she hikes her way to the tree that she has officially claimed as her own.

(She has her name carved into it and everything.)

The tree is still there when she arrives, standing tall and beautiful as always, and she takes her backpack off and sits down on the ground, leaning her back against the trunk as she takes her journal, pack of cigarettes, and a lighter out of her bag. With a sniffle, she shakes the box until a cigarette falls out onto her hand. Another one falls out onto the floor, and she sighs as she leans over to pick it up and put it back in the packet.

She puts the other between her lips, one hand reaching in her pocket for her iPod as the other one clicks at the lighter impatiently, zinging it a few times until it finally lights the end of her cigarette. Immediately, she sucks in deeply, a hiss of air drawing between her lips before she exhales the smoke with a shudder as a small breeze passes over.

The tree roots interlace in the earth underneath her, protruding from the soil in inordinate loops and ridges, and she strokes her index finger over every single one.

They’re rough.

Everything seems to be these days.

She lays her head back gently on the jagged trunk, puffs of warm breaths leaving her lips, before taking another draw of her cigarette. And then again, taking a deep drag and inhaling the smoke, exhaling it out of her nostrils into the brisk air and watching it disappear with squinted eyes.

Once she finishes it, long after the playlist is over, she brings her hand up and stares at the cigarette butt between her fingers, shaking her head and sighing before squashing it into the ground next to her and putting it with the other ones that lie there.

She feels so small under this tree.

Beca’s always been small. Her dad calls her bug and her mom used to call her tiny grasshopper when she was growing up, and despite the fact that she used to hate the nicknames they eventually grew on her. She’s always been small, and if anybody passes her in the woods they probably won’t even notice her. The tree she’s sitting under is big enough to make her feel like an ant.

Not many people seem to come here though – whether it’s 5AM or not – except from a few hikers every now and again.

(Probably axe murderers too, but in the nine years she's been coming here, she hasn't come across any that she’s aware of.)

Much like any other normal person, Beca has her own little hideaway. A place she comes to think. To calm down. To escape. The tree is hidden in the forest a twenty minute walk away from hers and her father's house. She hates that it’s such a cliché thing, but nobody knows about it other than her father, and she doubts she’ll be telling anybody about it any time soon.

There’s something about the empty forest that calms her.

She had come across the tree when she was just nine years old. Her dad had been collecting wood for the fire, and the tree – a sycamore, she thinks – happened to stand out to Beca straight away. It wasn't like it was a special tree or anything, and it wasn't the biggest tree in the forest, nor was it the most beautiful tree in the forest, or the tree that was easiest to climb; but it stood out to the nine-year old, who had been looking for a new place to write her stories.

It’s one of those trees that has no palpable reason to exist in this particular forest. Every single one of the trees stand tall and beautiful, slender trunks holding up over-hanging branches, and their boughs woven together with different shades of greens and yellows and oranges and sometimes light browns.

But this one. This is the type of tree that belongs somewhere else; not in the small beaten down town she lives in. It belongs somewhere different and new, Beca thinks, like in a completely different time and age. It belongs fifty years from now, on a freezing winter morning in Central Park or Boston Common, with its leaves resting on the ground, waiting to be stepped all over. Somewhere where people can see its wilting branches and fallen seeds and dampened trunk, and admire it as much as Beca does all year round.

Of course, at nine-years old, Beca was too young to walk twenty minutes from home just to find this tree to sit under, or to climb it so she could write, so she made the most of the times she and her father would go out to collect wood for the fire, or whenever they decided to just take a walk. And for the next four years, until she was thirteen years old – old enough to go out on her own – she cherished the small amount of time she had when the two of them walked out here, writing her stories under the tree as Warren found firewood, or the occasional everyday item that someone had dropped on their passing.

She still has some of the things the two of them had found back then. A bookmark found next to a bunch of small rocks. A silver ring resting on top of two dried out leaves. A missing page of a book, which she soon discovered was from the beginning of To the Lighthouse. A red Swiss army knife resting in front of the very tree she’s sitting under.

She carved her name into the tree using the same Swiss army knife on her tenth birthday.

Right now, according to her watch, it’s 5:40AM, and she’s due at work in about an hour. She, once again, couldn’t sleep, so decided that five in the morning would be a reasonable time to go for a walk. It was still dark when she arrived at the tree, but now, after sitting in mostly silence after her playlist had ended, the morning sun is starting to peek through the gaps in between the leaves, illuminating different parts of the man-made footpaths around her.

The sun isn’t shining on her though, which she thinks is a perfect metaphor for her life.

It’s almost like a movie.

Ironic. Beca hates movies.

She counts to ten and looks up at the sky.

On the occasional morning, she likes to watch the sunrise. She’ll sometimes wake up especially early to watch it; watch the rays of sun merging into neon pinks and peaches and colors that she didn't even know existed until she witnessed the magic beneath the veiled sky.

She likes to watch the sunrise because after all, she can only see so many.

Before heading off, she makes the most of the chill atmosphere. Her tree, and the other trees surrounding her, and the rising sun, and the rooster from the farm down the road, and the birds singing, and the crickets, and the quiet whistling sound of a train in the distance. Other than that, it’s completely silent. No rushed footsteps, no murmured rumors or hushed whispers, no car engines roaring to life, and no tractors or lawnmowers, and absolutely nothing but nature.

With a sigh, she pushes herself off of the ground and stands up, wiping the dirt from her jeans. Another day with nothing written, she thinks, as she stuffs her cigarettes, lighter, and journal into her backpack, hoisting it up onto her shoulder. She puts her iPod back into her pocket, slides her headphones onto her head, and sets off back home, traipsing through the dry mud and fallen branches.

* * *

**_Her eyes shoot open when she hears it._ **

**_It’s hot, and her eyelids feel heavy, and she feels unexplainably weak for some reason._ **

**_She hears it again._ **

**_The sound of something crackling._ **

**_She lifts her arm up, struggling to keep her eyes focused as she looks at her watch, the numbers blurring together._ **

**_11:15PM._ **

**_Something feels wrong._ **

**_She lets her arm fall to her side with a thud as she lay there, turning her head to look beside her. Immediately, her eyes widen at the sight of the barn around her. It takes a few seconds for it to sink in but when it does, she sits up as fast as she can, looking around her frantically to see the stacks of hay and the wooden beams up in flames, spreading across the barn with every passing second._ **

**_Her first thought is about just how tired she feels. And then her second thought is_ run _idiot,_ run _._**

**_Her eyelids still feel heavy, and it feels like something is weighing her entire body down, but she pushes herself to get up, stumbling onto her feet and looking around her. She didn’t even realize she’d fallen asleep. The last thing she remembered was listening to music on her Walkman, and now it’s past her curfew by fifteen minutes and the barn is on fire, and all that she really needs to concentrate on is getting the hell out of here before she, you know, dies._ **

**_She picks her journal and her Walkman up off of the floor and scans the barn with squinted eyes._ **

**_The whole barn is a wreck, and the fire is spreading quicker than she expected. Thick black clouds of smoke are surrounding her, and the heat is making it harder for her to concentrate on anything, so the only thing she can think to do is run._ **

**_She runs and runs, and it’s like one of those fever dreams where the room is expanding with every step she takes, but this isn’t a dream, and the beams are cracking above her and it’s so real and so scary. She takes a few steps back, turning away just as a beam falls down in front of her, blocking the exit._ **

* * *

When Chloe wakes up, she’s pretty sure she’s dying.

Her head is pounding, her body aches everywhere, her throat feels like sandpaper, and she feels like she’s going to throw up at any minute. Only whenever she runs to the bathroom, she’ll dry heave for a few minutes before the feeling surpasses, and she has to drag her feet back to her room, where she then curls back under the covers and closes her eyes.

This happens at least four times before she decides to just get up and go take some Advil. Her clock says it’s 8:04AM, and God knows why she’s up at this time on a Sunday, especially after a party, but she’s sure that now that she’s awake, she won't be going back to sleep any time soon.

Aubrey had thrown a party last night; a graduation party of some sort. And everything was going smoothly until Stacie pulled the tequila out and insisted on doing body shots. Chloe can’t even remember half of what happened.

It must’ve been a good night though, judging by the way she feels.

She shuffles downstairs with a yawn, counting the steps as she goes – nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen – and she makes her way to the kitchen, the smell of coffee and bacon – or what seems to be bacon – lingering in the air. The mix of the two makes her nose turn up, and when she notices it is in fact bacon in the kitchen, she knows that her dad must’ve made some this morning before work. She pours herself a glass of water and takes two headache tablets.

It’s a nice day from what she can see. Streams of sunlight fall through the window, filling up the kitchen with a warm, bright light. She can hear the bird's chirping outside, and the sound of someone mowing their lawn. It’s a typical summer morning, and Chloe’s glad that she doesn't have to worry about doing last minute homework on Sundays anymore.

She decides to put the Train album on that she had downloaded last week, skipping it to track six and turning the volume up with a smile on her face.

“ _There was a mountain on the table of bills that needed paid_ ,” she sings along, trying to take her mind off of her hangover. “ _Dishes in the kitchen sink like dreams that never fade._ ”

She walks over to the cupboard, pulling out a mug and placing it on the counter, and she pours herself a cup of coffee, putting one and a half sugars in it and stirring – exactly ten times, she makes sure.

“ _A wild imagination, convicts in the yard. Never enough time to make ends meet._ ” She opens the fridge and takes out the milk and eggs, then gets some flour from the pantry. “ _So they put it on a credit card. Don't we all?_ ”

She carries on singing along as she makes her pancakes, casually moving around the kitchen as the song progresses. She’s in her own little world, on stage where people are clapping and chanting and screaming at her, and then she’ll bow and thank them for coming and they’ll scream even louder and she’ll play another song.

She’s too busy putting on her own little performance that she’s completely unaware that someone is stood at the door watching her.

_Sigourney is a girl I met in Brooklyn,_  
_Paris got me close in New Orleans,_  
_I guess my mother bless her heart,_  
_set the bar too high to start._  
_'Cause finding love for me is just too hard,_  
_for a son of a prison guard–_

"–Excuse me."

Chloe gasps, suddenly dropping the pan on the floor and wincing when it makes a loud, clanging sound as it comes into contact with the tiles. She turns around abruptly, her breath heavy, but it soon slows down when she sees that it’s Beca Mitchell at the back door.

"G'morning," Beca says politely, nodding her head as she stands in the doorway.

"Holy crap,” Chloe breathes out with her hand on her chest. “You scared me, I... I didn't know you were here already."

"I noticed. Your parents went out earlier. Your mom something about going to the farmer’s market.”

"Ah,” Chloe smiles, “okay.” She kneels down to pick the pan up and sighs when she sees the pancake mix splattered all over the floor.

So much for a good breakfast.

"You need any help?" Beca asks, and Chloe shakes her head, looking up at Beca with a small smile for a split second before going back to cleaning the mess up. She cleans the pancake remnants off of the floor and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand as she stands up, smearing some flour on her chin.

"You, uh... you got a little something on your face."

"What? Where?" Chloe brings her hand to her face, wiping it all over, but still managing to miss the flour on her chin.

"No, the uh... on your chin. Right here," Beca points to her own chin to show her, and Chloe laughs nervously.

"Could you get it for me?" Chloe asks, and then she’s in front of Beca, with Beca looking up at her nervously.

"Dude... That's-it's...” she tries to explain, but her words don’t seem to work. So instead, she reaches up and wipes the flour off of Chloe’s chin with the pad of her thumb.

She hates this already.

Chloe whispers her thank you, and Beca promptly becomes aware of how close they seem to be standing.

It’s weird.

She pulls her hand back and wipes the flour on her jeans, taking a small step back so she’s standing outside again.

“I came to ask if you had a light,” she says, holding up the cigarette she has in her other hand. “My lighter broke earlier.”

Chloe looks to the cigarette, shaking her head. “I don’t smoke,” she says defensively, and all Beca can do is sigh. Of course, Chloe doesn’t smoke. Her parents are the richest people in this town, Chloe can probably just go spend some money if she’s stressed. No need for resorting to drugs.

"Do you want something to drink?" Chloe asks, and Beca swallows.

"I, uh…” She watches as Chloe takes a step back and walks to the fridge. “I really should get back to work, I just came for a light. That yard ain’t gonna–um… the plants aren’t gonna… plant themselves.”

Chloe laughs. "Come on, you have all summer to do that. Cola or Lemonade?"

“Um…” Beca blinks, putting the cigarette in her pocket. "Cola. Please."

When Chloe got home from school on Friday after graduation, she was surprised to see Beca and Warren Mitchell in her kitchen with her parents.

They had explained to her that Beca needed a job and nobody in town was willing to help her out, so they thought it’d be a good idea to pay her to do the back yard for them. Which Chloe understands, because her back yard is a mess, and the grass is about as tall as her, and the hedges are overgrown and there’s a new fence in the garage that her dad had bought a year ago that he still hasn’t put up, and about a million other things that need doing.

What confused her, was why they hired _Beca_. Not that Chloe was mad or anything. She has nothing against Beca Mitchell. She’s actually always been intrigued by her, but her parents always told her that Beca was a bad influence, – bad _news_ , they said – and she's heard the stories about Beca’s father.

Whether they're true or not, she doesn't know.

All she does know is that Beca’s going to be working at her house all summer, which means she'll be seeing her a lot, which is also weird because regardless of how long they’ve actually known each other, she's only ever talked to her about three times in her whole life. Outside of classes, that is.

(One of those interactions include Beca heroically saving her from breaking her ankle on a pothole in her junior year. It – okay, it wasn’t so much as a heroic rescue, but more like, Chloe walking to school and then suddenly, Beca was pulling her by the arm, and Chloe thought she was going to get punched in the face or something, because Beca's grip was really strong, and she was kind of terrified for a split second. But then Beca told her to watch where she was going, as she pointed to the pothole, and Chloe finally said thank you after an hour of staring at Beca.

Or what felt like it. In reality it was probably two seconds, but Chloe likes to think they shared a moment.)

Still, she’s practically grown up with Beca – having attended the same pre-school, middle school, _and_ high school together – but Beca seems to just keep to herself. Chloe doesn’t think she has any friends.

While Chloe busies herself with getting the drinks from the fridge, Beca tries to think of something to say. She doesn’t really do small talk though, so she doesn’t quite know what to do other than just stand in the doorway. Luckily, Chloe’s much better at breaking the awkward silence between them, asking, "So how long have you been here?"

“My whole life.”

“No,” Chloe laughs. “I mean, how long have you been at my house? In the yard?”

"Oh. Since seven."

"Why so early?"

"Couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d get a head start.”

Chloe smiles as she turns around and hands Beca her glass before sitting down at the table.

“Well, you’re doing a great job.”

The soda tastes nicer than normal, Beca thinks. Maybe Chloe has put something in it, or maybe the Beale's are just better at everything than everybody else. Like how it seems like the sun shines brighter here than it does where her house is, despite only being a five minute drive away. And how the mud in Chloe's yard seems really easy to dig up, and how the trees are much bigger and the grass is much greener, and the sky is bluer and there aren't as many dark clouds.

She doesn't understand that.

Then again, maybe it’s just her imagination. Maybe said dark cloud just follows her around everywhere except for when she’s at the Beale house, as if it’s a force field for bad things.

If that’s the case, then she's kind of glad to be spending all summer here.

"You can come in you know, you don't have to stand at the door."

She looks down as she walks into the kitchen, eyes trained on her mudded up converse, before sitting down opposite Chloe at the table and placing her cup down on the coaster that Chloe had put out for her.

“So, how are you?” Chloe asks with a smile, and Beca looks at her, not really expecting the small talk.

“Tired,” Beca replies curtly. “Been up since five.”

“Any reason?”

“Too much on my mind.”

Chloe nods in understanding, taking a sip of her drink.

"How come you skipped half of the album?" Beca asks, and Chloe's eyebrows knit together.

"Huh?"

"The album. You skipped to like, track seven."

"Oh. Track six. It’s the best song on the album.”

"I don't think it is."

"You don't?"

"No."

Chloe pauses, waiting for Beca to explain. "Which is the best?"

"Track two.”

"You actually like Train?" Chloe asks as she gets up and walks over to her iPod dock, changing the song to track two.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Beca asks with a small laugh, and Chloe smiles. It’s the first time she’s heard Beca Mitchell laugh. It’s a weird sound.

She likes it.

"I just thought you'd be into more... _darker_ stuff,” Chloe says, sitting down.

"Darker stuff?"

"Yeah. You know, Green Day, Linkin Park, Rage Against The Machine. Stuff like that."

"They're hardly _dark_ but okay."

"They are _kinda_ dark."

"I do actually like those bands."

"See!"

“Shut up,” Beca laughs again, taking another sip of her drink. “Listen to the damn song.”

 _Are you made of lead paint?_  
_A bulletproof Picasso_  
_All the virgin saints_  
_Put you here to care for me_  
_I don't need a reason_  
_For anything I feel_  
_Just be glad I say what I mean_  
_And mean what I say to you_

It’s nice, that they can joke around with each other already. They _have_ technically known each other their whole lives, having both grown up in the small town of Barden County – a town of only 7,000 – and passing each other probably every day in the school hallways. Beca likes to keep to herself though, and Chloe’s not sure what she’s getting herself into, starting a friendship with this girl.

But she likes Beca, she decides. Not in an I'm-pretty-sure-if-we-carry-on-hanging-out-I'll-most-likely-fall-in-love-with-you way, but in an if-we-carry-on-talking-like-this-I'm-pretty-sure-we-could-maybe-possibly-kinda-be-friends way.

And maybe Beca feels the same. Chloe hopes she does.

As a calm silence settles over them, Beca sits nervously, tapping her feet along to the music. Her eyes are kind of unsettled, glancing around the kitchen unceremoniously. The Beale’s already have a framed photo of Chloe at graduation on the wall – Chloe, Aubrey, Stacie, and a few others standing in front of the school with their degrees in their hand.

She notices that the photo doesn’t capture how blue Chloe’s eyes are, which is sad.

She runs her finger around the rim of the glass as she thinks of a topic of conversation. She doesn’t really know Chloe that much, other than the stuff she’s picked up along the way, so she’s not sure what to talk about. Music, maybe? They seem to have that in common.

_We don't need a reason_  
_For anything we feel_  
_We don't need a reason_  
_Picasso's at the wheel_

But then she hears her name, and she shakes her head, as if she’s ridding herself of a thought.

"Huh?"

"You were, uh... staring at me."

"Oh, sorry," Beca nervously looks down at her glass. _Great. She’s gonna think you’re a creep now._

“No, it’s okay,” Chloe says, with a shake of her head. “It’s fine.”

“Okay,” Beca whispers with a breathy laugh, before drinking the rest of her soda. She then stands up, with Chloe's nervous eyes watching her, and points her thumb back to the doorway. "I better get back to work. Um, thanks for the drink."

"It's okay," Chloe says, standing up, "Thanks for keeping me company on this fine morning.”

Beca smiles politely, even though she hasn’t really been the best company. She’s only been sitting down for about five minutes. And not to mention the fact that she ruined Chloe’s breakfast.

“I’m sorry for making you drop your pancake mix,” Beca rushes out quickly. She doesn’t want Chloe to think she’s ignorant.

But Chloe tells her that it’s fine, and Beca nods before leaving.

She really wishes she could offer to replace them.

Chloe watches Beca leave, walking to the end of the yard where she has already started to dig a line for some plants to go in. She’s already mowed some of the lawn as well, but more than half of it is still standing tall. The yard is kind of huge, compared to some other people's backyards, so it’ll probably take quite a while for Beca to get everything on the list done. Maybe all summer.

"You enjoying the view?"

Startled, Chloe turns around and sighs when she sees her mom standing at the other side of the kitchen island with two grocery bags in her arms.

"What is it with people creeping up on me today?"

"What, I'm not the first one who’s caught you staring at her?"

There’s a hint of malice in her tone, which Chloe doesn’t appreciate.

"No, I don't mean it like that. I was singing earlier and Beca scared me. I didn't even know she was here."

Her mom smiles, taking a few tins and boxes out of the paper bags and putting them away.

"She got here just before we were heading out. I was surprised she was here so early."

"Me too. How come you're not at work?"

"Day off.”

Chloe nods. “I'm gonna go read."

"Not so fast. I bought you breakfast at the market."

Chloe smiles, taking the bag from her mother. She looks inside and there are two breakfast muffins, along with two apples. She takes a muffin and holds it out for her mom, but she tells her that she’s already had breakfast and she bought them for her.

“Mind if I share with Beca?” she asks, and she sees the hesitation in her mother’s eyes before she nods.

If her mother didn’t want her hanging around with Beca, she wouldn’t have hired her to work in the yard over the summer, she tells herself. She can be friends with a girl without wanting to be _with_ her.

She also decides to fill two glasses of water before taking them to Beca. They’ve just had a drink, but it’s a nice gesture, she thinks. Plus, it’s a warm day.

She grabs her book and tucks it under her arm. Maybe it’ll be nice to read outside while Beca works. They can get to know each other then.

Beca’s pulling some weeds out of the long grass in the corner of the yard when Chloe approaches her, and her eyes linger on the bit of skin showing on her lower back. She’s taken her flannel off and tied it around her waist, so she’s just wearing a white tank top, and Chloe can admit, her arms look really good like that.

Aesthetically, of course.

If Beca was a picture on Tumblr, Chloe would reblog it with the tag ‘#body goals’.

It’s normal.

"Hi again,” she says, watching as Beca pulls her earphone out and turns around. “I come baring gifts."

It kind of startles Chloe, when her eyes linger on Beca’s body a lot longer than usual when she stands up. And she doesn’t want to seem like a perv or anything, but there’s a thin layer of sweat on Beca’s pale biceps that just makes it look like they’re glistening, begging for Chloe to openly stare at them, so it’s not her fault.

 _Hashtag body goals_ , she repeats in her head.

"More gifts.” Beca says, interrupting her little reverie. “I'm starting to like working here."

Chloe laughs, handing a glass of water to Beca, and she takes it graciously. They both sit down on the grass opposite each other, and Chloe places her book down on the ground next to her. Beca takes the breakfast muffin and the apple from Chloe with a smile, as Chloe gets her own out of the bag.

"So I figured that if you're gonna be working in my back yard all summer, then we should get to know each other. Need to know if I should be sleeping with a baseball bat or not."

"That won't be necessary, I never strike at night."

Chloe laughs, ripping a chunk off of her muffin. "You're funny."

"Thanks. You seem surprised."

"I'm not. I mean... I don't know you. But from what I've heard, you're–you’re like..."

Beca sighs, and Chloe can see the way she clenches her jaw and it makes her nervous.

"I know what people say about me. You don't have to try to be friends with me just to make me feel better about myself. It just makes you a dick."

"I'm not,” Chloe shakes her head, eyes a little wide at Beca’s insinuation. “I would never do that to someone. I... you intrigue me, that’s all."

Beca scratches her eyebrow, taking a small bite of her breakfast muffin, chewing it properly before quietly swallowing it.

"Old Yeller,” she says, nodding towards the book that Chloe put on the ground, and Chloe is thankful for the change of subject. “You enjoying it?”

"You know that book?"

"Chloe, I think _everyone_ knows that book.”

Chloe smiles. “Yeah, I mean… Obviously. It’s good. Don't tell me what happens, I'm not done yet."

Beca laughs as Chloe starts talking about the book, and she kind of can’t wait for Chloe to finish reading it just so they have an excuse to talk more.

(Of course, she’d never admit that out loud.)

//

For some reason, Jesse decides to throw a party on Monday night.

He claims it’s a ‘freedom’ party, since they’ve graduated now. His parents are away though, so the party just kind of turns into a huge mess. Stacie doesn’t make her do tequila again, but she does make her drink vodka, which practically has the same effect on Chloe.

The ambience is nice, but Chloe won’t admit that, because she’s actually having a shitty time. She’s sitting on her own at the dining room table with a drink in her hand and nobody to talk to. (She has no idea what the drink is, but at least it doesn’t take like shit, unlike the drinks at Aubrey or Amy’s parties.)

Aubrey and Stacie had ditched her a half hour ago, and she’s pretty sure they’re the ones in the bathroom who everyone keeps complaining about.

When some guy called Tom offers to get her a drink – even though she clearly has one in her hand – she really doesn’t have it in her to say no. At least he’s trying. Plus, she could use a friend.

And okay, a few hours later and she’s pretty much intoxicated. She can feel the earth rocking beneath her; her mind drifting in and out like the tide, and her vision wavers every time she tries to focus her eyes. She feels better than she did earlier though.

She’s talking to Tom, or rather, he’s talking and she’s just staring at him. She isn’t listening to what he’s saying because of course, that’d mean she’d actually have to multi-task, which she hasn’t even fully mastered while sober; never mind drunk.

He seems sweet though. She can feel herself drifting closer to him, and she thinks he’s talking about the band that he’s in. He’s attractive, she thinks. He has really green eyes – they’re kind of beautiful, but she prefers blue – and she can practically count the freckles on his cheeks because they’re sitting so close, with his arm wrapped around her and her hand on his thigh.

And then she’s kissing him, and he smells like beer mixed with too much men's cologne. The strong type of cologne that’s thick and disgusting; smells so bad that she feels like she’s swallowing it.

He’s a pretty bad kisser too.

Way too much tongue.

It’s Aubrey who drags her away from him.

“God, Bree, thank you. I don’t think I could’ve taken any more of whatever _that_ was,” she motions towards Tom. “I can totally feel the earth moving on its axis right now."

"Chloe, I really love you, you know that?"

"Yes." Chloe says, grabbing onto Aubrey's arm for leverage as she looks into her eyes. "I love you too, Bree."

"So, I'm sending you home. That's how much I love you."

"What? No!"

"Chloe, y–"

"–I'm not going!"

"Chloe!" Aubrey snaps, holding onto Chloe's shoulders to stop her from struggling in her arms.

"What?"

"You're gonna end up doing something stupid if you don't get home now. Your mom called me earlier to make sure you’re home by eleven. It's now almost ten thirty. You gotta go home, babe."

Chloe pouts, pulling her arms from Aubrey's grasp.

“Fine.”

“I’ll call you a cab.”

“No, that’s okay.”

“Do you have a ride home?”

She just nods, and then Aubrey gives her a peck on the cheek before disappearing back into the house.

And she’d really like to say that she remembers her way home from Jesse's house, but that would mean she actually paid attention when they were on the way here, and she in fact didn't. Which was a big problem. Because right now, she can't tell one road from another.

Why the fuck did she tell Aubrey that she had a ride?

She has a song stuck in her head. Poison's 'Every Rose Has Its Thorn'. It’s a dumb song, she thinks. It was playing at the party, and for some reason, she actually liked it. But now that she’s slowly sobering up, she doesn't.

It's not that it’s a bad song, it’s just... really sad.

Chloe likes to feel happy when she listens to music. This song feels like the ending a movie; sitting in the back of a cab ready to start a new life, up until your boyfriend chases you through the streets of New York and proposes to you right there in the middle of the freeway. Except, that doesn’t happen in real life. In real life, it starts to rain and the cab breaks down and it leaves you stranded in the middle of nowhere, soaking wet with nowhere to go.

And she really wishes she could take that thought back, because five minutes later it starts raining

"Seriously?"

She stands there for a while, her gaze fixed ahead of her as she thinks about how tragic she must look like right now. A drunk girl in a dress and heels, walking home in the pouring down rain, soaking wet hair now stuck to her head, and her mascara smudging under her eyes from where she had wiped them earlier

She can still taste Tom’s beer and cologne as well, and she feels gross.

Her curfew is at eleven, and she really shouldn’t have told Aubrey that she didn’t need a cab, because now she’s walking up the street on her own, and her phone is dead, and she’s still drunk, and it’s raining – heavily, of course, because what other way to shit on Chloe’s night than to completely ruin her brand new dress? And God, why on earth did she say she had a ride?

She’s about to just call it quits and sit on the side of the road, or knock on the closest door and ask them if they can take her home, when she hears a car coming up the road behind her.

She turns around and the headlights are blinding her, and she doesn’t really think rationally when she’s drunk. She throws her arm up, waving it above her head a few times and sighs in relief when the driver pulls up beside her.

The owner of the car – now that the headlights aren't shining in her eyes, Chloe realizes it’s a red pick-up truck – reaches over and opens the door, and she immediately jumps in, muttering "thank you so much" before shutting the door behind her.

It’s only when she turns to look at the driver a few seconds later, that she sees it’s Beca Mitchell.

"Oh, Beca! Hey!"

"I could have been an axe murderer," Beca says, and Chloe lets out a soft laugh.

Only, Beca isn't laughing. She isn't even smiling, and Chloe just breathes out a heavy breath of air which probably smells like vodka and Tom.

"It's a good job you're not, right?"

“You have way too much trust in people. Stuff like that can be dangerous, Chloe.”

"Right," Chloe nods. “Sorry. It’s just raining, and–“

"–Why are you out so late?"

"I could ask you the same question."

"You're in _my_ truck."

"You look really nice tonight,” she says, deflecting the question, but Beca just sighs.

"Chloe," She says, and Chloe can sense the aggravation in her voice.

"Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I just... there was this party at Jesse’s house, and Stacie made me do vodka shots, and honestly, don't _ever_ give me vodka,” she points a finger at Beca, but she’s not looking at her. “There was this guy and he kissed me, and now that I think about it, it was kinda gross. It was actually _really_ gross because I think he was high and I _hate_ drugs. Then I left the party and I told Aubrey that I had a ride, when I clearly _don’t_ , and I was humming Every Rose Has It's Thorn and then it started raining and now here I am.”

"You talk really fast."

"Thanks. I think."

Beca sighs. "You want me to take you home?"

"Yes please."

"Put your seatbelt on. And for the love of God, please don’t start singing that song. I hate it."

Chloe smiles.

On the way back to Chloe's house, she talks non-stop, which doesn't really surprise Beca.

She knows how much Chloe can talk. At one point she almost tells her to shut the hell up, because it’s late and she’s droning on about Aubrey and Stacie and how they basically abandoned her at the party before Tom came up to her, and Beca is _tired_. But she doesn't say anything because Chloe seems pretty upset about it and Beca's not _that_ mean, contrary to popular belief.

Soon enough, Beca pulls up to Chloe's driveway, the rain even heavier than before now.

The clock reads 11:09.

The two of them just sit there. Sort of comfortable, but sort of not.

Beca thinks it’s awkward.

Chloe doesn’t really want to get out of the truck.

It’s silent apart from the sound of the rain thudding on the windows, and occasionally the sound of the windscreen wipers swishing to the left, wiping the rain away.

"Are you gonna get out?" Beca asks, not looking at Chloe. And Chloe just sits there for a second, before quickly nodding as she picks her purse up off of the floor.

And then her eyes catch a glimpse of the clock, and she groans.

"Please tell me your clock is ten minutes ahead."

"No."

"Damn it," She throws her head back on the headrest, and Beca doesn’t even need to ask to know that Chloe immediately regrets it judging by the grimace on her face. Now that she’s sobering up, her head is probably pounding.

Still, she asks, "You okay?"

"My curfew is eleven."

"So is mine."

"My parents are gonna kill me." Chloe looks at Beca, her eyes big and blue and wide, and Beca looks back at her for a few seconds, before she switches the engine off and opens the door.

"Where are you going?" Chloe asks, just as Beca slams the door shut.

She walks around to Chloe’s side of the truck, the rain not really bothering her, and she opens Chloe’s door, and just as Chloe’s is about to get out, Beca stops her. She takes her leather jacket off, and drapes it over Chloe’s shoulders.

Chloe smiles at her as she gets out of the car, and Beca shuts the door for her. She suddenly gets the urge to take hold of Chloe’s hand or arm, or put her own hand on the dip of her back to make sure she doesn’t fall over, but she decides against it.

That’d be weird.

The jacket doesn’t really do much to help, but it’s a nice gesture. When they get to the front door, Beca just looks at Chloe awkwardly when she feels her staring. It looks like Chloe is trying to read her face, as if Beca is a book or something. But Beca’s not a book, so she turns and knocks on the door, and about six seconds later, it swings open to reveal Chloe’s dad with a worried look on his face.

“Chloe, thank _God_ you're okay."

"Hey dad," Chloe just says, and before anybody can say anything, Beca clears her throat.

"Sorry for keeping her so long, Mr. Beale. We were hanging out at Jesse's and I didn't realize how late it was. I hadn't been drinking and I couldn't let her walk home alone so I gave her a ride. I apologize again for being late."

Chloe's eyebrows knit together, but Beca ignores it.

"Oh. Uh, okay…" He nods politely, "I'm glad you were there for her.”

"It's no problem," she smiles a small smile. It’s hardly there, and it’s gone before any of them can truly take it in, but she smiles.

Chloe takes Beca’s jacket off of her shoulders as she steps into the threshold, and she hands it over to her with a smile.

"Thanks for the ride, Beca," she says, and Beca just nods.

"You, uh… have a good rest of your night.”

"You too,” Chloe says. “Thanks again."

And then Chloe shuffles inside, and Beca turns around and heads to her truck, the small fake smile dropping as she gets inside.

//

From then on, Beca thinks that she and Chloe are going to be fast friends.

And that’s not at all because Chloe had said those exact words to her after she had woken up and remembered that Beca was the one who covered for her so she wouldn’t get into trouble.

Chloe had run up to her when she saw Beca in the garden, grabbed her hand, and pulled her in to a hug, whispering “I’m so glad that I met you, I think we’re gonna be really fast friends,” and other things that Beca can’t quite remember. There’s only so many things you can focus on at once, and of course, Beca was focusing on the way Chloe smelled, and how nice it felt to have someone hug her for the first time in years.

How nice it felt to have _Chloe Beale_ hug her.

She’d forgotten what it was like, to have actual human contact with somebody that didn’t feel forced or wrong. The fact that it was Chloe Beale made it even better.

And for the next two weeks – save for her days off – Beca is welcomed with Chloe sitting on the swing on her front porch, ready to follow Beca into the garden to talk her ear off. Beca should’ve seen the red flags while they were there. But her eyes are wide open and all she sees is Chloe Beale.

She needs a distraction before she ends up making a mistake.

//

It’s a surprisingly warm night when Beca sneaks out of her window, making sure to prop it open with the bucket that she leaves outside so it won’t close while she’s gone.

She has the forty dollars she earned these last couple of days in her pocket and she pulls her hood up despite the warm midnight air, making her way out of her front yard and up the dirt road. And sure enough, Luke is waiting around the corner, his car engine on but the headlights turned off.

She approaches the window, sighing when she sees he’s asleep. She knocks. A small smile creeps onto her face when he jumps in surprise, before he relaxes and rolls the window down.

“Scared the shit out of me Becky,” he says, and Beca rolls her eyes.

“ _Beca_ ,” she says. She fiddles with the money in her pocket – the money that Mrs. Beale gave her today, certainly not knowing that it was going to be spent like _this_ – as she looks inside the car.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got them,” Luke says, reaching into the glove compartment and pulling out a brown paper bag.

Beca shivers at the sight of it.

“How much?”

“Five big ones.”

“Five hundred dollars?” she hisses, looking around to make sure nobody heard her. There’s no one around though, and she doesn’t realize that Luke is joking.

Apparently he actually has a sense of humor.

“I’m _kidding_ , Becky.”

God, she hates that accent.

“ _Beca_.”

“Fifty.”

“I only have forty.”

“Then you only get four bags.”

“Luke,” she sighs, clenching the money in her hand. “Please.”

“Becky, you’re getting this for half of what I sell it for. I’m doing you a favor.”

Beca scoffs, scratching her nose. A favor.

“Forty for four bags,” he says. “No negotiations.”

She sighs, shoving the money into his outstretched hand. He smiles at her, and for a second she thinks maybe he’s just going to drive away with everything. It wouldn’t be the first time that happened to her. Instead, he looks down at the bag in his other hand, before looking back up at her.

“You know, you could pay me in another way.”

“Fuck you.”

He laughs, pulling out one of the small plastic zip lock bags and shoving it back into the glove box, before handing her the brown bag.

“Nice doing business with you,” he says, saluting her. And he’s just about to drive away when she tells him to wait. She looks into the brown bag, seeing that it’s all there, before folding it back up and shoving it into her pocket.

He doesn’t even need to ask to know that she wants to go with him.

There’s no way she can do this back at home.

He takes her to his place – a twenty minute drive towards the city – and she gets déjà vu as he puts the Rolling Stones on; remembers all the times they’ve been here, in the dingy little abandoned garage that Luke calls home.

He offers her a drink and she turns it down with a cold “no” and she rolls her eyes when he tells her to make herself at home.

It’s like a routine. The way she grabs a spoon out of the drawer in the kitchen – of course, Luke takes it off of her and gives her the _proper_ spoon – and she walks into his bedroom, sitting on his bed as she pulls the drugs out of her pocket.

She empties one of the small zip lock bags onto the spoon, reaching for the lighter sitting on Luke’s bedside table. She holds the lighter underneath the spoon, watching as the powder turns into liquid and starts to bubble.

The drugs hit her like a train when she’s finished, like hot steam pumping in and out of her, and for a moment, she struggles. She struggles before she lets the drug course through her body, spreading and washing over her like waves on the cool ocean.

She’s floating or falling, or neither. Everything fades out as her eyes squeeze shut in euphoria. There’s the distant sound of a Killers song playing in the background, pulling her deeper – in her disgustingly peaceful state – into the abyss. Into an alternative universe where everything is okay.

She’s never drowned, but she thinks this is what it’d feel like.

It’s refreshing more than it is scary.

Luke’s hand rests on her shoulder, and he feels far away and unreal. He asks her a question that sounds nothing like words, and his voice is oddly deep and satisfying and nice. She smiles lazily, eyes trying to focus on Luke.

“I hate you,” she says with a smile, eyes hooded and lazy and bloodshot. She laughs. “Man, I fucking hate you.”

“I know,” he says, and for a second she thinks she sees a hint of an apology in his eyes, on the tip of his tongue, but it’s gone before she can say anything about it.

She wishes she could stop all this. Wishes there was any way to feel this way without having to take drugs. Wishes that Luke wasn’t such a fucking asshole to her. Most of all, she wishes that she was right. Because truthfully, Luke is the only thing she has.

She loves him.

He’s ruining her.

She suddenly starts to feel hot, and she palms at her shirt, grunting when her hands don’t seem to work properly. Luke reaches over, helping her by taking the hem of her shirt and pulling it over her head, leaving her in just her sports bra and jeans.

She lays back on the pillow, looking over at him with a smile.

“You trying to get me into bed?” she says, her tone light and playful. It’s crazy how she can be mad at him one minute and in love with him the next.

“You’re already in my bed,” Luke says.

She closes her eyes, her head lolling back and forth for a few seconds before she feels a hand on her thigh.

“You still with me?” Luke asks, and Beca nods, sitting up.

Luke looks enticing and Beca is lonely. But Luke isn’t Chloe and Chloe is the only person Beca wants.

It’s that thought that causes her to lean forward and kiss Luke. And when she does, he tastes like beer and weed.

He always tastes like beer and weed.

She pulls him on top of her, hands clawing at every part of him, wanting to touch all of him at the same time. His hands are rough and callused as he pushes her into the mattress, fingers running down her stomach. She knows it’s wrong but she can’t help it. She needs to feel something, and Luke is here. Luke is safe. Luke is the closest thing she has to a friend.

When she pulls his shirt off and shoves her hand into his pants, he asks her, in his sickeningly drug induced mind, if she’s sure. Of course, she’s not sure. So when he gets no answer, he pulls away from her and goes to get her a drink of water.

It makes her hate him more knowing that he _cares_.

 


	2. part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for this chapter: mentions of a family member's death, mentions of drugs
> 
> sorry the point of views in this are all over the place, i suck

_“glow is low and it's dimming / and the silence is ringing / and I can almost feel your breath / I can almost feel the rest / night is young and we're living / hands move, moving steady / and the time is moving slower / I can feel we're getting closer, closer / standing in the eye of the storm / my eyes start to roam / to the curl of your lips / in the center of eclipse / in total darkness I, I reach out and touch / my mind's gone on racing / on a horse that's escaping / and I'm ready to jump, / yeah, I'm ready to swim.”_   - touch, troye sivan

* * *

It’s late when Chloe decides to go downstairs for a drink after watching Game of Thrones.

She doesn’t expect her dad to still be up. He’s sat at the kitchen table and the only light in the room is coming from his laptop in front of him as he writes down something in his work diary. He’s surrounded by piles of paper and several case files and it looks like he’s ready to pass out any minute.

“Hey dad,” Chloe says, making her presence known. He doesn’t respond, just looks up at her and smiles, before looking back down at the page he’s reading.

He only looks back up at her when she places a cup of coffee on the table beside him.

“You look exhausted,” she says, sitting down on the chair adjacent to him with her glass of orange juice. She picks up one of the case files to look at, but her dad pulls it out of her hands and puts it at the other side of him with the others.

“Sorry, it’s confidential,” he says, taking his glasses off. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” she replies. “Just wanted to see how you’re doing.”

He blinks twice, clearly not used to small talk with his daughter. “I’m good. I’m okay. How are you?”

“We should hang out.”

“Chloe, you know how busy I am with–”

“With work, I know,” she finishes for him. She looks down at her glass and rolls her lips.

As proud as she is of her dad getting a promotion, she hates that he’s been too engrossed in his work to spend time with his family. And she loves him, and she knows that he loves her, but he feels like a stranger and she hates it.

“Your mom told me you’ve been hanging out with Beca a lot.”

She perks up a little at the mention of her friend, nodding. “She’s really cool, you’d like her if you got to know her.”

“Just be careful, honey,” he says. “That girl is bad news.”

“She’s not exactly bad news dad, she’s just,” she pauses. She doesn’t know _what_ Beca is. Doesn’t know the truth about her enough to say anything good or bad about her.

“She’s just what?”

“I don’t know. She’s not at all like people make her out to be. She’s,” she gulps, “special.”

Her dad sighs, looking up at her. “Please don’t tell me you have a crush on this girl, Chloe.”

She shakes her head with a frown. “No,” she says. “God, dad, just because I like girls doesn’t mean I like every girl I lay eyes on.”

“Don’t use that tone with me, Chloe, I’m too tired.”

“I’m sorry, but… but what would it matter if I _did_ like Beca anyway?”

She tries to ignore the way her heart is pounding. Tries to ignore the way it pounds even more when her dad glares at her.

“I don’t have to forbid you from seeing this girl, do I?” he asks. “Because I will.”

“No, I’m sorry,” she says, standing up and putting her chair back under the table. “Goodnight.”

For the first time in years, she doesn’t kiss him on the cheek when she leaves.

//

Chloe’s always either reading her book, painting, or drawing in a small drawing pad when Beca greets her on a morning.

Sometimes she’s grinning already, before Beca even makes her presence clear, and sometimes she’s concentrating so hard that it looks like both of her eyebrows are going to permanently stay knitted together on her face.

However, today Chloe just has a closed book resting on the seat next to her with a miserable look on her face, and it immediately strikes Beca as strange.

Just like the other times she had arrived over the past two weeks, Beca doesn't greet Chloe until she walks up the footpath towards the house. By now, Chloe would already be stood up and smiling, and then Beca would take her gloves out of her back pocket and put them on, while she'd say, "Mornin’," and Chloe would usually either reply with "Good morning" and shoot her a bigger, brighter smile. Or she'd say "Hey!" in that beautiful, cheerful tone that she uses, and Beca would end up drowning a little bit more in the happiness radiating from the one and only Chloe Beale.

But this morning seems different.

"Morning,” Beca says as usual as she puts her gloves on, curious as to why Chloe looks so upset. Chloe just looks up at her and smiles a small, tightlipped smile, until Beca’s finally standing in front of her. Then Chloe stands up, not saying anything as she turns and walks towards the back yard.

The backyard, although still needing a hell of a lot of work, is coming along quite nice, if Beca must say. Although, it _does_ feel as if she has worked her ass off for two weeks with next to no results. But that’s probably because once Beca starts to actually put effort into digging up the soil and planting flowers, Chloe will come out with a glass of lemonade or a coffee and some savory snack, and they'll start talking. Be it about a new book Chloe has read, or new music Beca has found, or anything else that – most of the time – Chloe feels passionately about.

Then before Beca knows it, hours will have passed and she’ll still be sitting in the same spot, talking to Chloe, with the shovel or lawnmower lying untouched next to her.

Without saying anything else, Beca continues to follow Chloe to the bottom of the yard. They walk until Chloe stops and turns around to face Beca and suddenly asks her what she likes to do. It takes a second for Beca to reply, confused at what exactly Chloe is asking her.

"What?"

"What do you like to do?" Chloe repeats. "I know you like to read books, and you like music. What else?"

"Um…” she pauses, rolling her lips, and she figures that she won’t be getting much work done today, so she takes her gloves off and puts them back in her pocket. “I like to write,” she says, thinking about the unfinished manuscript she has sitting on her desk at home. “I like going for walks or long drives. I also like the city."

“Barden City?”

Beca nods. "I sometimes drive there."

"Really?"

"Really.”

"What do you do there?" Chloe sits down on the grass, and Beca follows suit immediately, trying not to notice the way their knees are touching. Barely, but they’re touching.

It burns a little.

"I like to look at the Memorials. I sometimes get a coffee if I have the money."

"Is that it?"

"Yeah, I don't… I can't really do anything else with no money."

"So you just drive out there, look at the memorials, and drive back?" Beca nods. "That's like, two hours there, two hours back. Why?"

"I don't know,” she breathes out a laugh. “I like to just… get away from the town for a little while. Even if it's just for a few hours."

"You don't like it here?"

Beca gulps. "I didn't say that."

"But I'm asking… Don't you like it?"

"It's a small town. There's not much to do."

"So you're looking for adventure?"

"I'm looking for whatever I can find."

"What do you want to find?"

"You ask a lot of questions."

Chloe lets out a small, almost inaudible breath. It isn't quite a laugh, but it isn't quite a sigh either. She does that a lot, Beca notices.

Beca notices a lot about Chloe.

It’s only been two weeks, but she already feels like she’s in way too deep.

"Let's go,” Chloe says after a short silence, and Beca's eyebrows knit together, pulling her hand away from the grass that she had unconsciously started to pick at.

"Where?"

"The city."

"Now? Today?"

"Yeah.”

"I don't know."

She only has twenty dollars on her. The rest of her money is sitting in her ‘New York’ jar at home. She doesn’t get much from this job – okay, she gets $5 an hour and works about eight hours a day, but it’s still not enough to keep up with herself. The twenty dollars she has in her pocket is for drugs, and knowing that kind of makes her feel sick; makes her question whether or not this is a good idea.

Chloe doesn’t like drugs. She told her that two weeks ago.

"Why not?" Chloe asks, and she’s doing that thing with her eyes that makes Beca feel weak at the knees.

If she gets closer to Chloe, she’ll find out. And she can’t risk Chloe finding out because she will lose her, and _God_ , she _can’t_ lose the only good thing in her life right now.

"I’ve got work to do."

She wonders whether that’s possible; to lose someone she doesn’t _have_.

"My parents won't mind."

Beca doubts that.

"I don't have enough gas in the tank."

"I'll pay. I'll even buy you lunch."

Beca shakes her head. "I can't ask you to do that."

"You're not asking, I'm offering. I've never been to the city before. _Please_ , Becs."

And something about the way Chloe says 'Becs', makes Beca's stomach twist, and warmth flutters throughout her entire body, and it’s weird. Nobody – other than her parents – has really ever given her a nickname before.

She still has some left over from yesterday. She can survive a couple more days.

"Okay," She says, and Chloe's mouth widens into a smile for the first time today. Her lips lift upward, her eyes crinkle, and her nose scrunches up, and she’s so beautiful. It makes Beca smile back immediately.

It’s like Chloe is the sun. And if Chloe is the sun, Beca is a burning asteroid, violently falling through the sky; falling so fast that it terrifies her.

"Really?"

She shrugs. "Why not?"

And before Beca has a chance to say anything else, Chloe jumps up to her feet and skips - literally _skips_ \- up the yard to her backdoor, where she slides it open with a strong push, and disappears inside.

Beca makes a note not to write about this. She knows it’s not permanent.

//

If you would have told Beca Mitchell that this summer, she'd be driving up to Barden City with nothing but twenty dollars, her phone, six pieces of gum, two cigarettes, and one very excited Chloe Beale; she honestly wouldn't have even known what to say.

Yet here she is, driving up the highway with Chloe in the passenger seat, listening to the girl sing You Got Me Rocking at the top of her voice; the windows rolled all the way down and her hair whipping in the warm breeze, with an actual, genuine smile on her face.

Beca’s never been on a road trip before. Not with someone other than her dad or by herself, anyway, and she honestly doesn’t really know how to feel. She _has_ only technically known Chloe for two weeks, and sure, she’s spent her whole life growing up with Chloe, but she was a nobody. She always has been. She’s not sure being friends with someone for two weeks makes it okay to indulge in a spur-of-the-moment road trip to the city. Especially with next to no money as well.

Chloe’s the type of person who likes to get her own way, and Beca is the type of person who – ironically – despises people like that. But in some way, Chloe’s different.

She’s always been different to Beca. She would sometimes watch Chloe in class, and despite the fact that Chloe didn’t particularly hide how smart she was, Beca knew that she could do better. She _can_ do better. She was always so nice to everyone. She would hold doors open for people and apologize if they walked into her, even if it wasn’t her fault. Chloe was the type of person who everybody in the school had a crush on. She’s just very _likeable_.

Which is why Beca isn’t surprised that she’s started to fall for her.

Chloe’s annoying, but different.

Beca’s been looking for something different for a while now, and she thinks maybe she’s found it.

And if Chloe just wants to go to the city to see the memorials because she’s never been before, then Beca’s sure as hell gonna take Chloe to the city, damn it.

As the song fades out and the next track starts, Chloe turns the radio down and twists her body so she can look at Beca. And Beca, feeling Chloe looking at her, but wanting to keep her eyes on the road, asks her what’s up.

"You're real-smiling," Chloe says, and Beca raises her eyebrows.

"I'm what?"

"Real-smiling. It's the most I've ever seen you smile."

Beca just stays quiet as she keeps her eyes on the road in front of her, noticing that she is in fact real-smiling. As she drives, she tries her best to keep a neutral expression on her face, before she comes to a stop at a red light.

She waits for a few seconds, before turning her head to look at Chloe who is still looking at her, and another smile tugs at the corner of her lips.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You're still smiling."

"Because you're making me smile, idiot," Beca laughs, turning her head back to the road to avert her gaze, but the sudden blush on her cheeks gives her away. The light turns green again, and Beca sets off as Chloe turns the music up a little louder.

It’s hard to not real-smile when Chloe Beale is sitting beside her.

They carry on driving like this, occasionally chatting about whatever they’re thinking. It’s mostly Chloe who starts the conversations, asking Beca things like "is there enough gas in the tank?", "What's your middle name?", "I've heard there's a zoo in Barden City, is that true?", "Can we take a pit stop? I need to pee.", "You don't have any other CD's in your truck?", and the inevitable "are we there yet?" despite the fact that they haven’t even been on the road for an hour.

It’s at least eighty-five degrees outside, and the sun is gleaming through the windscreen. Luckily though, Beca had put the air conditioning on earlier, which is blowing cool air onto their arms and legs. It doesn't make much of a difference, but at least they have that, as well as the cool breeze through the windows.

Beca glances at Chloe for a split second before looking back out at the road again, her eyes momentarily catching sight of the gas tank meter, and she frowns when she notices that it’s close to being empty. If they want to make it to the city and back in the same day, it needs to be half full, at least.

"We’ve gotta stop for gas," She says.

"Okay, we'll stop at the next gas station."

"Um… I can pay if–"

"–No,” Chloe interrupts. “I said I’d pay."

Beca breathes out a sigh, glancing at Chloe before looking to the road again, passing a sign that says there’s a gas station nearby. She’s thankful Chloe hadn’t forgotten that she’d offer to pay.

"Are you sure?" she asks. She’d never take advantage of Chloe’s money, but Chloe is a lot better off money-wise than she is, she can admit.

"Yeah, I'm the one who made you drive me. It's the least I could do. You could buy me some Lifesavers though and we'll call it even."

Beca has to resist the urge to tell Chloe that she’s not _making_ her do anything. Instead she just says "Deal" as she switches lanes.

They fill the tank up – or rather, Beca fills the tank up – while Chloe waits beside her making rude remarks. Such as when Beca says "I can't get it in", referring to the gas pump, Chloe responds with "that's what she said" and for some reason, it really makes Beca blush. Like, a lot. She doesn’t want to think about Chloe that way.

As Chloe pays for the gas with her card, Beca goes straight to the candy section. She picks up a pack of Reese's for herself and some Lifesavers for Chloe, then two bottles of water for them for the rest of the hour-long journey.

Soon enough, they’re back on the highway.

//

Chloe is staring out of the window in awe as Beca drives through the streets of Barden City. It looks so much bigger compared to the town they live in. There’s bigger buildings, and less greenery, and more cars and taxis and trucks, and hundreds more people, and nine thousand times more shops, and the roads are actually made out of concrete. It looks incredible, and Beca’s never seen Chloe look as excited as she does now.

Beca pulls into a parking space down the road from the Memorial Museum, and Chloe is out of the door before she even has chance to shut the engine off. Chloe’s like a little child, and Beca won’t admit it, but she finds it incredibly endearing.

Enough to make her have to sit in the truck for a few moments longer as she prepares herself for the day ahead.

"Where are we going first?" Chloe asks as Beca gets out of the truck and locks the doors. She turns around to see Chloe looking over at the Museum, which isn't too far away. They’ll be able to walk it easily.

"You wanna go to the museum first?" she asks, pulling her box of cigarettes out of her pocket. She notices Chloe looking at them. “Do you mind if I…” she asks. She doesn’t want to make Chloe uncomfortable.

Chloe just tells her to go ahead though, asking how much entrance to the museum is.

"Um, I don't actually know."

"That's okay. Come on!"

When Chloe grabs her hand and pulls her along, Beca has to count to ten.

It’s a five minute walk to the museum, and it’s actually busy to say it’s quite early. The two of them stand in the line for about fifteen minutes before they reach the paying booth.

"Two tickets please," Chloe says in a chipper voice to the guy at the desk. He looks to be no older than the two of them, and he looks bored. Beca doesn’t blame him, really. It must be boring standing at a desk all day.

As they wait, Chloe turns around and smiles at Beca just as she’s putting a piece of gum in her mouth.

“Want one?” Beca asks, and Chloe shakes her head with a polite smile.

"Are you excited? How many times have you been here before?"

"I haven't been _in_ the museum before,” she says, trying to keep her tone light. “I've only driven up a few times. I just kind of admire the ones outside from a distance."

"Oh, okay," Chloe smiles, wondering _why_ Beca likes to drive up to see the memorials. There must be a reason. However, she stores that question in the back of her mind to save for later.

Beca doesn't have enough money to pay, which is why she now feels bad because Chloe has paid for her admission in _and_ for the gas there. But she pays with no complaints, and without taking no for an answer, and she keeps telling Beca that it’s the least she can do for driving them both up here.

The fourteen dollars she has in her pocket feels like it’s burning her skin.

The first part of the tour is about the background of the Barden bombings, which strangely, Chloe finds very interesting. But then again, she’s Chloe Beale. Everything is interesting to Chloe Beale. There are ten chapters throughout the tour, which give the visitors insight on everything that had happened leading up to it, and everything that happened on the day.

They listen to an audio of the blast, see damaged furnishings and pieces from buildings, watch videos of the survivors doing interviews, look at pieces of evidence leading to the offenders, and a lot more that Beca seems to have blocked out automatically. Chloe seems to be fascinated by all of the information she’s learning though, and Beca actually finds it quite adorable.

Almost enough to take her mind off the fact that they’re actually _here_.

Chloe can tell that there’s something wrong with Beca, judging by how quiet she’s being. She’s always quiet, but she hasn’t said a single word around the whole museum, and sometimes she keeps looking away from Chloe and staring off into the distance.

It isn’t until they reach the gallery of honor, that Chloe notices Beca becoming more anxious and fidgety.

"Hey," Chloe says, her arm nudging Beca's. She turns to look at her, and Chloe gives her a friendly smile. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

Chloe nods, not wanting to push, and she walks over to the wall that stands before them that holds tributes to the people who were killed in the bombing. She notices that Beca stays a few steps behind her, but she figures that it’s normal for someone to respect from afar. Beca’s one of those people who likes to be in the background, so it doesn’t seem too odd.

It breaks Chloe’s heart, as she looks at all the pictures, that these people had lost their lives in such a tragic event. That all these people had families and friends who would never see them again. That it was only a handful of years since this happened. She doesn’t know anybody who was unfortunate enough to die in the accident, but it still makes her sad.

She likes to hug people when she’s sad.

And she could have held Beca's hand, or just asked Beca for a hug (and Beca would have probably complied, no doubt) but when she turns around, Beca is gone.

Her eyes dart around as she spins in a complete circle, not really wanting to cause a scene by yelling Beca's name. But just as she’s about to move on to the next room to see if Beca has gone in without her, her eyes catch sight of her standing in front of one of the pictures in the big room. Her shoulders are slumped, and her face looks to be a little hostile. She looks angry, but upset too.

She looks like she’s in pain.

Waiting a few seconds, Chloe breathes in a deep breath before she approaches Beca.

"Hi," She says, lightly touching her shoulder.

Beca doesn’t answer, but she immediately lifts a hand up to cover Chloe’s, and Chloe can feel the way her hands are shaking.

She keeps her eyes trained ahead as she sucks in a breath, looking at the picture. As Chloe follows her line of sight, hoping to see what she’s staring at, her eyes catch a glimpse of it. The picture of a woman; a huge smile on her face, a dark sweater, her hair long and brown. She’s beautiful.

She looks like Beca.

She glances down at the plaque underneath the picture, and her mouth parts slightly when she sees that it reads, ‘Mrs. Elizabeth Mitchell’.

"Oh. Is that…"

"My mom."

Chloe nods, her hand tightening its grip on Beca’s shoulder momentarily. She doesn’t really know what to do.

She wants to hug Beca.

She wants to ask so many questions.

She wants to run her hand down Beca’s arm so she can hold her hand and never let go.

Instead, she stays standing beside Beca, looking at the picture.

“She has kind eyes,” Chloe whispers. For a split second, a small smile tugs at the corner of Beca's mouth just as Chloe looks at her, and Chloe smiles too, thinking that she’s so, _so_ brave for coming out here today. "Do you miss her?"

“Yes,” Beca answers immediately. “Of course I do.”

“Tell me about her?”

Beca breathes out a sigh, and before Chloe even realizes what she’s doing, she’s reaching down and sliding her hand down Beca’s wrist and into her palm, their fingers clasping together and intertwining as they both stand beside each other and look at the picture of Beca’s mother.

“She died when I was eight.” She swallows the lump in her throat. “I don’t remember much of my childhood, but the stuff I do remember, she was always there with me,” she pauses, her hand tightening around Chloe’s. “She sang to me and she had so much love to give. _So_ much. I didn’t know what to do with it all.” She pauses. Sniffles. “Her death was so sudden. One day she was there and the next, she was gone. It’s crazy,” she sighs, “how life can fuck you up like that.”

"She sounds amazing."

Beca nods and looks down at the ground. "Other than my dad, she was the only family I had. It was always just me and her and him, until it just suddenly wasn’t anymore."

“You don’t have any aunts or uncles?”

“None.”

“Grandparents?”

“Died before I was born.” Chloe moves closer, wanting to let Beca know that she’s here for her and she’s not going anywhere and she’s not alone.  "I'm sorry," Beca whispers.

"For what?"

"Lying. I have been here before. Once. My dad brought me to see the museum after it was built. I just didn't want you to ask questions so I lied."

"Why did you tell me just now?"

Beca pauses for a second before shaking her head with a soft, strained laugh. She looks at their hands clasped together before looking back up at Chloe.

"I don’t like lying to you.”

* * *

**_She tries to scream; to yell for help, but her voice is sore and she chokes on the gritty air that seems to be suffocating her. She breaths in slowly, crouching down to look for any sort of exit. The ceiling starts to crack, and she looks up. She only realizes that she’s crying when she doesn’t see the ceiling, but instead a blurry mess. She chokes back another sob, taking a deep breath, before wiping her eyes with the back of her hand._ **

**_She looks around frantically again, more and more desperate to find a way out. Immediately – mostly out of instinct – she starts to make her way forward as fast as she can, when she sees a small hole in the barn, just past a few stacks of hay that, luckily, haven’t caught fire yet. She drops to her knees, hissing as her hands come into contact with the warm, rough ground, dropping her journal and Walkman. She quickly clips the Walkman to her shorts, and starts crawling, making sure to protect her journal under her arm. She hears a loud crash behind her, but she doesn’t turn around. She keeps crawling, until she weakly leaps to her feet again, and starts sprinting._ **

**_Her legs seem to be weakening, and the pain as the fire whips at her legs is unbearable, but she manages to make it to the small exit just as another beam falls down at the other side of the barn. Only, when she approaches the opening, she realizes exactly how small it is. There’s no way she can fit through it, despite how small she actually is._ **

**_So she hits it, repeatedly slamming her palms against the wood above and around it to make the hole bigger, and she grunts and she hits and hits and hits, but it doesn’t work. She takes a few steps back, and kicks it as hard as she can. Again, it doesn’t seem to be making much of a difference, so she kicks it again and again until she sees some of the panels start to crack above it._ **

**_She kicks it repeatedly, until the panel cracks and her leg goes through it, and the wood scrapes her shin but she can’t find it in herself to care. Luckily, it doesn’t cut deep, just a slight graze, but the hole still isn’t big enough for her to fit through. So she continues kicking, until she looks behind her to see that she’s pretty sure the barn is going to collapse any minute._ **

**_She thinks about her mom._ **

**_She wonders if this is how she felt the day she died._ **

**_Like everything is falling apart and there’s nothing to do except to just sit back and let it happen._ **

**_She takes a deep breath, whispering “fuck it”, before dropping to her knees and crawling through the gap, grunting as she hits her head. She throws her journal outside, watching as it lands in some mud, and shimmies her way out. As she turns her head though, a piece of wood digs into her collarbone between her neck and shoulder, and she cries out as the wood pierces her skin. The panels dig into her side as she squeezes her way out, coughing up the fumes from the fire, and she manages to finally get out with some extra pushing._ **

**_As soon as she’s out, she jumps to her feet, staggering forward slightly as she makes her way through the mud and onto the road in front of her. She reaches up to where the piece of wood had stuck into her collarbone and hisses in pain, pulling her hand away to see it covered in blood._ **

**_She’s just survived a barn fire, and she’ll be damned if this is what kills her._ **

**_Without giving it much thought, she unbuttons her flannel and takes it off, scrunching it up and holding it against the wound. She’s not a doctor, but she’s pretty sure that the cut isn’t deep enough for her to lose_ too _much blood, or at least she hopes it isn’t, but the sight of blood running down onto her white tank top is making her feel a little uneasy._**

**_She turns around, taking a few steps away from the barn as she strains her neck up, wincing when the wound on her neck stings at the motion. The smoke dissolves into the sky, almost as if it’s eating away at it, and the thick grey clouds puff into the air, shielding it with a veil of pure darkness._ **

**_She can’t see any stars tonight._ **

**_That makes her sadder than the thought of dying._ **

* * *

Maybe kissing someone sixty seconds after they’ve just opened up to you about their dead mother isn’t the smartest idea.

But to Chloe, it’s just fifty nine seconds too long to wait.

Beca’s lips are soft, and she trembles into Chloe’s mouth as soon as they touch, and Chloe rethinks her decision for a split second, but then Beca’s hand is on the back of her neck and she’s kissing her back.

Beca Mitchell tastes like chewing gum and cigarettes and tears. She’s kissing her like she’s not in pain, but Chloe knows that she is.

For a moment, she feels like Beca’s everything.

She feels like it’s all her fault. She feels like Beca loves her. She feels like she’s crossed a line.

She feels so many things that she doesn’t know what to do.

Although she feels like she _has_ imposed; like she has just beaten the intimate details of Beca’s life out of her, she’s wrong. She knows she’s wrong. Beca _chose_ to tell her. Beca _trusts_ her.

Beca happened to be the one Chloe chose to take to see the memorials, and Chloe just so happened to be the one Beca told that detail of her life to. It was all based on choices, which is why Chloe chooses to kiss her like she’s been wanting to for two weeks now.

Kisses her like she’s choosing to love her.

//

When the two of them walk out of the museum, down the steps and onto the sidewalk, they’re still holding hands.

“Where do you wanna go now?” Chloe asks Beca, who is glancing around, trying to avoid any eye contact with both Chloe and the people that are passing by.

She’s nervous.

“I don’t mind,” She simply says.

“How about McDonalds? ‘Cuz I don’t know about you, but I could _really_ do with some fries and a milkshake right about now.”

The corner of Beca’s mouth tugs into a smile as she turns to look at Chloe. And she’s smiling too. She’s giving Beca the biggest, cheesiest smile she can manage. And Beca can’t help but let out a soft laugh at the grin, shaking her head and muttering “stop it” when Chloe tries to make her smile too. “You’re such an idiot,” Beca laughs, pushing Chloe’s shoulder with her own.

“Takes one to know one,” Chloe says, tightening her grip on Beca’s hand. “Come on. I might buy you an ice cream as well.”

Beca finds herself smiling even bigger, her lips still tingling from their kiss as Chloe drags her along.

Surprisingly, it’s Beca’s idea to walk through one of the parks after they’ve finished their food, because “well, you know, I thought you’d like to see it because you’ve never been, and… I don’t know, we don’t have to if you don’t want to, it was just a suggestion but it looks really pretty I guess…”

(At that point Chloe started to grin like an idiot at how adorable Beca is when she rambles, and of course, Beca tried her hardest not to blush.

She failed.)

Chloe smiles as her hand accidentally brushes with Beca’s, and she has to look down at her feet to stop her smile from growing.

But then Beca grabs her hand again, and she feels like she’s flying.

“Hey,” Beca says as they walk through the park, both admiring the trees and nature around them. Chloe – whose eyes had caught a glimpse of a family playing football with their dog – turns to look at Beca.

“Yeah?”

“It’s my birthday.”

“When?”

“Today.”

Chloe stops in her tracks, causing Beca to stop a couple of steps ahead of her, their hands still intertwined. “What? Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re eighteen?”

“Nineteen.”

Chloe nods, remembering Beca fell behind a year in third grade. Now it makes sense. “Today?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know,” Beca pauses, shrugging her shoulders. “Never came up. You don’t really want to be that person who goes around telling everyone it’s your birthday, right?”

Chloe grins. “Well, happy birthday.”

“Thank you.”

The two start walking again, until they reach a footpath where there are a few people walking up and down and a few people sat on the grass and benches. A small smile appears on Chloe’s face as she starts to sing.

“Happy birthday to _you_ , happy birthday to _you_ , happy _birth_ fmph-”

She immediately stops singing when she feels Beca’s hand over her mouth, and she can’t help but burst out laughing. And Beca is laughing as well, her hand still over Chloe’s mouth in case she carries on singing.

“I knew you were gonna do that, you’re such an asshole.”

“I know. I embrace it,” Chloe says, her words muffled by Beca’s hand.

“God, you’re so weird.”

“ _You’re_ weird.”

“Stop it,” Beca laughs.

“You’re making this weird!”

“You are!”

“You’re the one with your hand over my mouth.”

She laughs again as she moves her hand away, dropping it to play with Chloe’s hand as they stand in front of each other.

“Beca.”

“Yeah?”

“Hi,” Chloe whispers.

“Hey.”

“I’m glad you brought me here.”

Beca just smiles, looking up into Chloe’s eyes.

“Yeah,” she whispers, her eyes flicking down to look at Chloe’s lips. “Me too.”

Kissing Chloe Beale is like diving into the ocean head first and Beca just hopes she doesn’t drown.

She’s never been the best at keeping her head above water.

* * *

**_It’s when she hears the sirens that she starts to panic._ **

**_Her heart is pounding, and her throat is aching from coughing so much, and she’s covered in sweat. In less than a minute the building will probably be surrounded, as will she, and it’s the inevitability that nobody will believe that she’s the victim that sends her running._ **

**_She’ll run into the woods, back home to where her father will be waiting for her._ **

**_Where he’ll be the only one to believe her._ **

**_Except, as soon as she sets of running, her legs give way again and she collapses to the ground with a loud grunt. The sounds of the sirens get louder and louder, and she can make out the blurred outline of two fire engines through her teary eyes, before she squeezes them shut, clenches her teeth, and pushes herself up. The tires screech, and the wail of the sirens barrel through the streets, and she lets out a small sob as she picks her journal up and limps away as fast as she can._ **

**_The burns on her legs and arms tell her to stop, to sit down and rest, but now isn’t exactly the time for sleep. She’d done enough of that in the barn apparently. Now is the time to run, before anybody sees her. She turns around once more, her breathing erratic as she squints over at the barn._ **

**_She watches as the firemen jump out of the trucks, and the policemen stand several yards away, talking into their radios, before she bolts, grinding her teeth at the sharp, throbbing pain in her neck and the agonizing ache in her legs. She doesn’t need to stick around to watch any more. She needs her dad._ **

**_She runs as best as she can, trying her hardest to ignore the pain, and she quickly brings a hand up to feel her collarbone, gasping at the sting. She tries not to swear when she sees the blood on her hand again, instead holding her shirt up to the wound to stop it from bleeding onto her tank top any more._ **

**_As she gets further into the woods, she slows down to a stop at a fallen down tree, sitting down with painful gasps. She looks down at her legs, seeing the mud, burns, and grazes covering them. Her whole body is aching and burning, and the feeling makes her want to throw up. She leans over between both of her legs, dry-heaving and coughing until the feeling eventually surpasses. With a sigh, she lifts her wrist to look at her watch and notices that it’s way past her curfew, so with wobbly legs, she sets off again, trampling through the woods._ **

**_She really doesn’t want to get into trouble for being home so late._ **

* * *

It’s probably not the best idea to drive to a shitty motel in the middle of the day and rent a room just to have sex with Beca Mitchell, but when Beca’s lips touch her collarbone, Chloe decides to just stop thinking all together. Stop thinking about how this is probably the worst decision she’s ever made, and that she’ll regret it immediately after the damage is done. But Beca’s mouth feels really good, and she’s not sure she has the willpower to stop.

Beca presses her against the door as soon as it slams behind them, and she drops the motel keys on the table in the doorway, and Chloe doesn’t think about how they could be sightseeing right now. Instead, she watches as Beca stands back, panting and grinning at her, and she thinks that this sight is way better than the city.

“What?” Chloe asks, when Beca just stands there staring. It doesn’t make her feel uncomfortable, but there are better things they could be doing right now.

“Just thinking about how stupid this is.”

Chloe’s face falls, and she realizes that of course this is stupid. Of _course_ Beca thinks this is stupid too. So she opens her mouth to say something, but Beca is there again, mouth inches from her own, and her hands resting on her hips.

She’s much smoother than Chloe ever expected.

Not that she’s thought about kissing Beca.

Beca peppers kisses over Chloe’s cheeks and forehead and nose before she returns back to her mouth. She’s touching her like no one has ever touched her before, and it makes Chloe’s heart pound harder. Faster.

“Are you sure?” Chloe finds herself asking as she feels Beca’s cold hands slip over her stomach, and Beca pulls back slightly, eyes opening to look Chloe in the eyes.

“What?” she breathes out, ready to lean in again, but Chloe puts a hand on her chest and Beca frowns.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I’m sure. Are you?”

Chloe nods, noticing the look of pure ecstasy on Beca’s face. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking that…” she gulps, her hands sliding up Chloe’s shoulders and neck until they’re cupping her cheeks, the pads of her thumbs running over the soft skin of Chloe’s cheekbones. _Don’t fall in love with her_ , Chloe’s mind tells her as she gets lost in Beca’s eyes. “I’m thinking that I don’t know how to feel when I’m around you.”

No one has ever touched Chloe like this.

“Is that bad?” She asks.

No one has ever _looked_ at her like this.

Beca shakes her head. “I haven’t decided yet.”

And Beca leans in again, stopping just before their lips touch, to make sure Chloe wants this too. To make sure they aren’t making a huge mistake. But Chloe closes the small gap between them, running her hands around Beca’s neck before lightly stroking her hands through her hair, and it all feels so _right_.

Beca doesn’t know which part is more dangerous. The drugs in her system or falling for Chloe Beale.

They both seem to have the same effect.

They somehow make it to the bed as if they know what they’re doing (they don’t) and Beca moves as if she’s in a trance, standing in between Chloe’s legs as Chloe looks up at her from where she’s sitting on the edge of the bed. She looks beautiful; the most beautiful thing that Beca Mitchell has ever seen.

“You’re really pretty,” she whispers as she holds onto Chloe’s cheeks, her lips soon attaching to Chloe’s again as she climbs onto her lap. It’s clumsy and kind of awkward, but it’s the most heartfelt kiss that Beca has experienced, and she’s not sure if she can handle much more without _wanting_ more.

Chloe doesn’t reply but Beca can feel her smiling against her lips, and that’s enough to make her heart flutter. Enough to let her know that Chloe wants this like she does.

But then Chloe stops.

She stops kissing her, putting her hands on her shoulders as she looks up at her through heavy eyelids, and she stops smiling. And Beca doesn’t even realize that the reason Chloe stopped is because she’s crying until Chloe’s thumb wipes across the bottom of her eye and makes her aware of her tears.

“You’re trembling,” Chloe whispers. “You’re crying.”

“ _God_ ,” she breathes out, slowly dropping her forehead to rest on Chloe’s shoulder. And they’re kind of in an awkward position, with Beca straddling Chloe on the edge of the bed, one leg up on the bed and the other standing on the floor to keep her balanced. So she huffs, lifting her other leg up so they’re in a comfier position, and she feels Chloe’s hands stroke the back of her head and her neck, telling her that it’s okay – that _she’s_ okay – and that she’s here.

Any other time she’d be thrilled to be straddling Chloe like this, but she’s upset. About what, she’s not sure.

She feels like a baby.

But she nods in response, burying her nose in the dip of Chloe’s collarbone, and Chloe kind of smells like oranges mixed with a little bit of fresh air. Much different to the rough stench of cigarettes and shame Beca’s sure that she has on her own skin.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, pulling her head back slightly so she can look Chloe in the eye. “I don’t usually cry, I promise.”

“It’s fine,” Chloe smiles, moving to rest her forehead against Beca’s. “We don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

“I want to. I really do.”

“I know.”

Beca sighs, closing her eyes. “I don’t want to fuck things up.”

“You won’t.”

“I care about you, Chloe.” She opens her eyes, looking down at Chloe’s lips as her hands rest on her shoulders. “It’s scary.”

“You don’t have to be scared.”

“There’s just something about you,” she sniffs up.

“Hey,” Chloe whispers, and Beca looks into her eyes, pulling her head back slightly so she can see Chloe properly.

“What?”

“I care about you too. I’m not going anywhere.”

Nobody has ever told her that. Nobody has ever took the time to tell her these things, to comfort her, or to make her feel like she’s worth something. To make her feel like she’s _loved_.

That’s the scariest part of all of this.

//

Later that night when they get back, long after signing out of the Hotel and getting strange looks from the people in the lobby, they decide to go back to Beca’s house. Her dad is still out, so Beca leads Chloe to the hammock in her garden that her dad built when she was younger. Surprisingly, it’s still sturdy enough to hold two people.

“Where did you get this scar from?” Chloe asks. Their legs are tangled, sides touching, and there’s hardly any space to breathe between them. But it’s kind of comfortable, and Chloe loves being this close to Beca so she doesn’t mind it.

She runs her thumb over the scar on Beca’s collarbone. It’s a pretty big one, and she doesn’t know why she hadn’t noticed it before. Then again, she’s kind of been fixated on Beca’s face more than anything else – because Chloe’s pretty sure Beca is the most beautiful girl she’s ever met.

Beca doesn’t answer her though. She swallows and her finger starts to unconsciously stroke circular patterns on Chloe’s shoulder and suddenly she looks nervous as she looks up at the stars.

“You don’t have to say,” Chloe says before she can speak up, and then she points to her own scar on her forehead. She explains that she got it when she was seven when she fell off of her bike, and she had to have stitches and everyone brought her cards and flowers while she was in the hospital.

And Beca grins because she can imagine it; little tiny Chloe Beale with a Band-Aid on her forehead, acting tough and strong as all the kids crowd around her hospital bed listening to her tell her brave story.

She wishes hers was that kind of story.

“Did you know in 2018, NASA are launching the world’s biggest space telescope ever?” Beca whispers, continuing before Chloe even has chance to respond, “It’s called the James Webb Space Telescope. It’s going to look back in time to study the very first galaxies ever formed,” she pauses as she turns her head to the side to look at Chloe who is already gazing at her.

Beca smiles and turns her head back to look up at the sky again and she can feel Chloe’s eyes burning a hole in the side of her head and she wants nothing more than to kiss her. She continues anyway. “They’re gonna have a sunshield the size of a tennis court and it’ll take weeks for the telescope to completely unfold. How cool is that?”

"Very." Chloe whispers, eyes still locked onto the girl lying beside her. “You’re… You’re really something, Beca Mitchell.”

Beca laughs, shaking her head, but she doesn’t say anything. She's nothing special

"I'd love to know what else you've got going on in that head of yours," Chloe smirks and finally tears her eyes away from Beca's face to look up at the stars again.

But she can feel Beca looking at her, so she turns her head back to its previous position, smiling when she sees that Beca is staring at her lips.

“Hey.”

“All I can think about is today,” Beca whispers. “I want to kiss you again.” Chloe smiles, her heart pounding faster, and she thinks that maybe this is what being in love feels like. “Can I?”

“You don’t have to ask.”

When Beca smiles and closes the gap, Chloe decides that this is definitely what love feels like.


	3. part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for this chapter: mentions of drug use, mentions of homophobia
> 
> beca cries a lot. i realize this is kind of out of character but lets ignore that. she can be an emotional bitch as well as a badass okay.

_"I thought that I was dreaming when you said you love me / the start of nothing / had no chance to prepare / couldn't see you coming / and we started from nothing / I could hate you now / it's alright to hate me now / when we both know that deep down / the feeling still deep down is good / all the things I didn't mean to say / I didn't mean to do / there were things you didn't need to say / did you mean to? me too / I've been dreaming of you"_ \- ivy, frank ocean

* * *

 

Chloe doesn’t see Beca the next day.

Or the day after that.

Which is fine.

Apparently she’s sick, Chloe’s mom tells her – she had called this morning saying she wouldn’t be doing any work in the yard today – but Chloe knows that Beca’s not sick. She’s avoiding her. She hasn’t answered any of her calls, and Chloe is ready to storm up to Beca’s house and demand answers when she gets a text from Aubrey asking if she wants to get brunch tomorrow.

She answers an hour later telling her that yeah, she’s free after eleven.

It’s a distraction, and that’s exactly what she needs.

* * *

**_"Where in God’s name have you been?” her father asks, standing up and walking towards her. “Do you realize what time it is? Beca, I can't have you out causing havoc. Not again. Not after the stunt you pulled last week at the convenience store.”_ **

**_It seems that he can't see her injuries, due to the porch light being turned off. Which is good. But then, before Beca can warn him, he reaches up and flicks the light switch on. As usual, the lamp takes a few seconds to come on, but when it does, his eyes widen._ **

**_“Oh my Lord.”_ **

**_“Dad, it's not as bad as it looks–“_ **

**_“–What happened to you?”_ **

**_His demeanor changes instantly. His eyes soften, and his voice quietens as he reaches out a hand to cup Beca's face, and only then does Beca notice that her head is injured too. His thumb strokes out and wipes the blood from her eyebrow, where she must have cut while climbing out of the barn. His eyes then wander down to the shirt which Beca has pressed against her collarbone, and he frowns._ **

**_“Holy Christ,” he whispers after he pulls the shirt away, noticing the gash there. And it shocks her to hear her father using such language. She’s not used to him saying things like that. Her father is the most religious man she knows._ **

**_You kind of_ have _to be religious in a town like this._**

**_It wasn't often that he used those kind of words. She knew then, that he was genuinely worried. Angry. Even scared._ **

**_“What did you do?”_ **

**_“I...” her words die in her throat, and she doesn't even realize she’s crying until she feels her dad wiping away a tear with the pad of his thumb, just like how he had wiped the blood from her head._ **

**_“Who did this to you?”_ **

**_“Nobody, dad, I...” She pauses, letting out a loud sob._ **

**_“You what, bug? What happened?”_ **

**_She looks up into his eyes, her breath catching in her throat when she notices just how scared he looks._ **

**_He hasn’t called her bug in years._ **

**_“There was a fire,” she breathes out. “At the barn.”_ **

**_“What? You was in there? What started it?”_ **

**_“I don't know. I was writing and listening to my music, and I... I must have fallen asleep and when I woke up, it was on fire. I got out, and–“_ **

**_“–By yourself?” he interrupts, and she nods quickly, bringing her hand up and wiping her tears with the back of it._ **

**_“I came home as soon as I got out, I promise. I didn't mean to be late. I didn't mean to,” she lets out another sob, “Dad, I didn't start it. I'm so sorry.”_ **

**_He pulls her in, embracing her as she squeezes her eyes shut and cries into his chest; tears, blood, and sweat staining his old worn out blue shirt._ **

**_“Shhh,” he hushes her, stroking the back of her head as she grips onto his shirt, “it's okay.”_ **

**_“Don’t tell anyone. Please. If people know that I was there then they'll think I started it but I didn't. I promise, it wasn't me. No one will believe me if I tell them that I fell asleep.”_ **

**_“Shh, Becs–“_ **

**_“–Dad, please don't tell anyone.”_ **

**_He shushes her again, and she carries on rambling about how it wasn’t her, and that she’s sorry, and that she didn’t mean it, she didn’t mean it, she didn’t mean it; until her words turn into soft murmurs, and he shushes her again and again._ **

**_“It's okay, bug,” he murmurs as he kisses her forehead, “come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”_ **

* * *

Chloe’s reading a new book when she’s interrupted by her phone ringing, and she picks it up as she finishes a sentence, mumbling “what?” into the phone as her eyes dart back and forth between the words.

“We’re here, where are you?”

Her eyes widen, as she pulls her phone back to check the time, seeing that she’s due to meet Aubrey and Stacie at the diner right now.

“I’m literally just setting off,” Chloe lies, “My dad needed help with something.”

She takes her book with her, throwing it into her bag before powerwalking to the diner. Her car is in for repair so she can’t drive there, but the diner is thankfully only a ten minute walk away. And when she gets there, Aubrey and Stacie are already sat inside, next to each other like always, with Stacie’s arm wrapped around Aubrey’s waist.

It scares her a little.

She’ll never understand them. They’re aware of how homophobic this town is; aware of the stories that circle around people getting bullied for being who they are, getting beaten, and worse. She’s not sure why they insist on sitting so close to each other, _touching_ each other in public, but they don’t seem to mind.

Nobody really pays them much attention but Chloe still likes to be careful.

It’s not that she’s ashamed, she’s just scared. Scared for them, scared for herself, scared for who else it will affect if she ever becomes a victim of such hate.

She checks her phone for any texts from Beca – not surprised that there aren’t any – before going inside, greeting them and listening to them immediately dive into a conversation about the new record store opening down the street.

“What’re you reading?” Aubrey asks as Chloe puts her book on the table, replacing it with a menu.

“It's kind of a funny story,” she answers.

“This oughta be good.”

“No, that’s the name of the book,” Chloe says, and then she tells Aubrey about the book. About how the narrator is a boy named Craig who’s depressed, and he checks himself into a mental health clinic and meets this really cool guy called Bobby, and this cute girl named Noelle, and she’s up to the part where he’s on the phone with a girl he likes who doesn’t like him back and–

And it isn’t until Chloe looks up from the menu that she notices Aubrey isn’t even paying attention to her. She’s looking at Stacie.

She just sighs and carries on looking for something to eat, trying not to reach for her phone every two seconds to see if Beca has text her.

Aubrey just orders a small milkshake, because she’s apparently on a diet. But she can’t be on a diet if she’s drinking a milkshake. It has at least six hundred calories in it, and twenty three grams of fat, and no vitamins whatsoever. And Chloe honestly doesn’t know why Aubrey is on a diet, but she’s not going to argue with her.

“But it’s strawberry,” Aubrey says when Chloe tells her it’s not healthy, and it only makes sense for Chloe to just let her be, with her cup of calories and fat and cholesterol, because Aubrey never really listens to her.

Stacie orders a salad, except she tells them to hold off on the tomatoes because apparently they give her hives, and when it arrives it’s basically just a small plate of… green. And Chloe, like a normal human, orders an iced tea and a veggie burger, which obviously earns a gasp from Aubrey.

“That’s so bad for you!” she says, and Chloe shrugs as Stacie rolls her eyes at her girlfriend.

“It's bad for _you_. I'm not the one who's on a diet.”

“But it's like, so _fatty_.”

“There are like, three hundred calories in this burger,” Chloe says. "That's three hundred less than what is in your 'healthy' strawberry milkshake.”

Stacie's eyebrows shoot up, and she bites her lip as she looks over at Aubrey, who just stays quiet, before reaching over and taking Chloe's burger out of her hands. She takes a bite, ignoring how Chloe and Stacie are laughing at her, before putting it back on Chloe's plate.

“You guys suck,” Aubrey says, with her mouth still full of burger and lettuce and bread bun and ketchup. Chloe and Stacie just laugh though, and eventually Aubrey joins in.

"It’s so weird not going to school," Chloe says with a sigh, when they’ve all finished their meals.

It earns an "I know!" from Aubrey, and an "Isn’t it cool?!" from Stacie.

"Yeah, I just...” she explains what she had told her mother at graduation. That she's 1. never going to see the school again, and 2. fill her locker up with crap, and she's 3. never going to have to go up the driveway where those stupid potholes are that – and she doesn't want to sound bitter – she almost fell down that one time in junior year.

"Oh God, I remember that. Didn't that, uh, Beca Mitchell stop you from stepping in it?" Stacie laughs. Chloe just smiles a small, nervous smile.

She checks her phone again.

"Yeah, she did."

No texts.

"Speaking of her...” Aubrey says, dropping her voice to a low whisper, as if somehow Beca can hear them. "Jesse said he saw her getting into that shady British drug dealer’s car at like, two in the morning on Monday. Luke, I think his name is.”

"What?"

"Yeah, I mean... It’s kinda sad, that the only person who’ll have sex with her is a drug dealer.”

Chloe frowns. Beca was with _her_ on Monday. Surely she wouldn’t do that. Not after the day they had.

It has nothing to do with Chloe, but it still hurts knowing it might be true.

She’s about to divert their attention by asking them if they watched America’s Next Top Model last night when she feels her phone vibrate in her pocket. And even after being ignored by Beca for two days, it still doesn’t stop the smile from forming on her face when she sees Beca’s name attached to the text.

**Beca – 11:26AM:**   
You home?

She doesn’t know why it makes her so happy. The thought of Beca waiting around for her makes her insides feel like jelly.

She keeps it casual though. She’s not letting Beca off the hook that easily.

**Chloe – 11:27AM:  
** No

**Beca – 11:27AM:**   
When you back?

**Chloe – 11:28AM:**   
Soon

Maybe the one word answers are a bit harsh but it’s already sent.

**Beca – 11:28AM:**   
Come to my house. Dad’s not home until morning.

That makes her smile.

**Chloe – 11:29AM:**   
What’re you suggesting, Mitchell?

**Beca – 11:29AM:**   
Netflix and chill, obviously

“What’re you smiling at?”

Chloe looks up, seeing Stacie and Aubrey looking at her, waiting for her to answer.

“Um, nothing. It’s my mom. She said she needs me at home.”

It surprises her that they actually believe her, and then Aubrey tells her that she should go home if it’s important. And she should feel bad, really, for bailing on them, but she misses Beca – it’s ridiculous, she knows – and she kind of just wants to be with her right now.

Something that she finds herself wanting more and more with every passing minute.

//

Chloe doesn’t know why the walk to Beca’s house feels like it takes so long.

It’s a beautiful day. Probably one of the hottest days of the summer so far – although, it is only three weeks into it, so she can’t compare it to much – but the sun is shining, and she can practically hear her mother telling her that she should be wearing sunscreen.

The sun is bright, and the breeze feels good on her face, and she’s going to see Beca and she’s really, really happy.

There aren’t many people who live on this side of town. Hardly any cars drive past her on the way, apart from the occasional group of friends packed into in a convertible, or a couple sitting way too close to each other. And she thinks it’ll take about twenty five minutes to get to Beca’s, but it surprisingly only takes fifteen.

Maybe it’s because she’s walking as fast as she can so she can get there sooner.

And sure enough, Beca is sat on her front porch waiting for her, as if she sensed that she was coming. Or maybe she’s been sitting there since they texted, Chloe wouldn’t be surprised.

She wishes she had thought this through, because when she sees her, all she wants to do is run up to her and give her the biggest hug she can muster and maybe kiss her a few times as well. But there’s a part of her that’s still mad at her for ignoring her for the past 2 days, and she wants Beca to want her more.

She goes with the former.

Chloe never gets bored of Beca kissing her. Which is why, when she runs up to Beca and hugs her as soon as she stands up, and Beca’s arms wrap around her waist as she presses her lips to hers; her legs feel like jelly.

“You’ve been ignoring me.” She says as Beca leads her into her house. It’s blunt and to-the-point, which isn’t like Chloe at all, but she’s missed her and she wants to know that – wants to know _if_ – Beca missed her too.

Beca busies herself with taking Chloe’s jacket off – like a true gentlewoman, Chloe thinks – and hangs it up on the coat rack. Chloe notices that Beca looks a little pale. Maybe her mother was right about Beca being sick.

It’s a long seven minutes, after Beca has made them both a cup of tea, before Chloe repeats herself.

“You’ve been ignoring me.”

“My dad grounded me.”

Chloe frowns. She didn’t know parents still did that after you turned nineteen. Chloe’s parents haven’t ‘grounded’ her since she was in eighth grade.

“Why?” she asks.

“He was just worried about me on Monday, that’s all.”

“Couldn’t you have text me? _I_ was worried.” Chloe stresses the _I_ , and she feels kind of selfish but part of her doesn’t care. “I thought you…”

“You thought I what?”

“I don’t know,” she shakes her head, but she does know.

She thought Beca realized how stupid they had been.

Sure, they hadn’t gone through with it at the motel, but they had cuddled for a bit – and kissed some more, which Chloe wishes they were doing right now – until they eventually gave the key back to the suspecting woman behind the motel counter. And she wanted to do more – _God_ , she wanted Beca like she’s never wanted anyone in her life – but they hadn’t done anything that would send any of them running, so she doesn’t know why she’s paranoid.

Beca is in front of her before she even realizes that she’s gone quiet.

She looks tired.

“You thought I what?”

She sniffs up, and Beca touches her cheek gently – so gentle that it just feels like a faint tickle, like Beca’s not even there – and she leans into her hand with a sigh.

“I thought you didn’t want what happened on Monday to happen. I thought you realized how dumb it was, what we did.”

She feels Beca’s hand now; really feels it. Feels the way Beca’s other hand comes up to rest on her other cheek, and she pulls Chloe’s head towards her as she stands on her tiptoes and kisses her on the forehead as she whispers her apologies, and all Chloe’s worries seem to fade away.

She melts into Beca when Beca tells her that she loved every second that they were in the city together, and she almost wishes that she could run away with Beca, if it will always be like this.

Just the two of them against the world.

Beca kisses her like no one has ever kissed her before. She takes her time, her hands caressing Chloe’s face, thumb wiping across her cheekbones, and she’s slow and gentle and so soft.

It makes Chloe want to cry.

When Beca takes her to her small bedroom and gently lays her down on the bed, Chloe thinks that maybe Beca loves her the same way she loves Beca.

“I’ve missed you,” Beca whispers as she presses their lips together, straddling Chloe’s hips as her hands hold her face.

She doesn’t move them. Not until Chloe slides her tongue past Beca’s lips and kisses her deeper, telling her she missed her too as she pulls her closer by the waist and dips her hands under Beca’s shirt. It spurs Beca on, one hand roaming down Chloe’s neck, over her collarbone, above the swell of her breast.

Chloe sucks in a breath, and she had no idea one person could make her feel this way. Certainly not so soon anyway.

They’re practically strangers and yet, Chloe feels like this girl is her whole world. Her soulmate.

“Can I touch you?” Beca asks, hands nervously resting on her heart. All Chloe can do is nod, because she’s certain that Beca has managed to render her speechless, even though she’s hardly done anything.

Beca’s hand trails down and rests on her covered breast as she leans in again, their mouths melting together and nothing but the sound of heavy breathing in the room.

Beca squeezes, and Chloe breathes out a sigh, her hands gripping Beca’s waist harder. With another squeeze, Beca detaches their lips and presses them to the corner of Chloe’s mouth, kissing her way down her jaw. Chloe moves her head to the side and Beca uses this as an opportunity to attach her lips to Chloe’s neck, cold lips meeting soft, tensed skin.

“Beca,” Chloe whimpers, and Beca responds by peppering her neck with more tender kisses. But Chloe wants more. She _needs_ more. She lifts her hips to gain at least a little bit of friction against Beca, and her hands move around to grip the back of Beca’s shirt, pulling her closer. She wraps her legs around her, whimpering as Beca’s hand slowly make their way down her stomach.

They’re still fully clothed though, and Chloe needs more.

She needs Beca’s skin against hers.

But Beca. Poor, sweet, loving Beca, is pulling away slowly, nothing but fear – and only a little bit of love – in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Beca whispers, suddenly pulling back and getting off of the bed. She stands up, running a hand through her hair, and it does nothing to soothe the pounding in Chloe’s heart.

Beca’s trembling again.

“Beca?”

“I can’t do this.”

Chloe sits up, confused. She stands up and pulls her shirt down from where it had rode up a little.

“What do you mean?”

Beca shakes her head. “There’s so much you don’t know,” she whispers, as she leans against the wall. “I can’t…” She sighs. “I can’t be with someone who I’m keeping so many secrets from.”

Chloe opens her mouth to say something, before closing it slowly. She’s not sure what to say to that. She has no idea what secrets Beca could have that would make Chloe love her any less. She certainly doesn’t see herself falling out of love with Beca just because of a few secrets.

Love. Maybe she should stop using that word.

She’s intrigued as well as scared. She’s not sure why Beca chose now, of all times, to tell her this, but she’s adamant on not letting anything mess up what they have. Because she likes her – she really fucking likes her – and she doesn’t want this to stop.

“Tell me,” she says, walking up to Beca and stopping when she’s in front of her. She reaches out to hold Beca’s hand, but flinches when Beca pulls away and pushes past her, walking over to her closet.

She turns with a frown, watching as Beca pulls out a small cardboard box and two jars of money.

She starts to worry.

Beca chances a glance at Chloe, and she can see the scared look on Chloe’s face. It kills her knowing that Chloe might be feeling afraid – or unsafe – but she needs Chloe to know her plans. Her hobbies. Her past.

She pauses. Looking down at the ground and taking a deep breath, she pauses, and she thinks. She thinks about whether she should do this now. It’s probably the best time to do it. Get all the filthy secrets out of the way before Chloe gets too attached. Give Chloe a chance to bail before they both fall too deep.

She puts everything on the bed, before looking at Chloe.

“I’m moving to New York,” she says.

Chloe looks at her, frown still on her face.

“I know you’re moving to California for college,” Beca continues. “I’m moving to New York to try and get my book published.” She watches as Chloe’s eyes stay glued to the stuff on the bed. “I want to move there as soon as I can. As soon as I have enough.”

“That’s why you took the job in my yard,” Chloe whispers. “To save for New York.”

Beca nods.

“We can work it out,” Chloe says, finally looking up at Beca. “We can do long distance. It’s only four years, and then I can move to New York with you after I graduate.”

Beca tries not to hope.

Chloe doesn’t _know_ her.

She clears her throat.

With a damaged heart pounding in her chest and sweaty palms, she picks up the small box and passes it to Chloe. Chloe eyes her – a little bit of suspicion and a little bit of worry – before looking down at the box. She pulls the lid off, immediately shutting it and choking back a gasp or a sob or _something_ at the sight of the drugs in there.

Beca’s head hangs low in disgust, shame, embarrassment, as Chloe puts the box gently down on the bed.

The silence is haunting.

“You sure are full of surprises,” Chloe whispers.

“Chlo–”

“Does that… Does it all belong to you?” she interrupts, not making eye contact with Beca.

“Yes,” Beca says.

“Do you take them or sell them?”

She thinks about not replying. If she says it out loud, it’ll make this worse. But if Chloe deserves anything, it’s to know the truth.

“I take them.”

Chloe takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly.

Beca wants to tell her that she’s not proud of herself for it – because she’s not, and she never will be – and she wants to tell her that she’s sorry. She’s not sure what she’s sorry for. For making Chloe fall for a drug addict? For spending her parents’ hard earned cash on drugs? For not telling Chloe before?

Of course, she’s ashamed. Ashamed that she took up such a life-destroying habit. Ashamed that she can’t go a week without having more.

If she hadn’t started this, she would’ve been in New York years ago.

But her mom is dead, and her dad is never around, and she’s lonely – _god_ , she’s always _so_ lonely – and she has no friends apart from her drug dealer and the town despises her and her family, and it’s the only thing that makes her feel something other than isolated.

And it had all started because of the fire.

And because of what followed afterwards.

And it wasn’t her fault, but it _was_.

* * *

**_It’s 2 days later when there’s a loud knock at the door. The type of knock that you just know belongs to some sort of law enforcement, because it’s way too heavy and powerful to belong to anybody else._ **

**_Her dad tells her that he’ll get it, and no matter what happens, to stay in the kitchen, out of sight from whoever it is._ **

**_It takes all Beca has in her not to just open the door and admit that yes, she was there that night of the fire. She did it, and she’s ready to accept any punishment they want to give her. After all, it’s already going around that she’s the one who started it. And she should’ve known, because whenever anything bad happens in this town, it’s always her. Even if it isn’t her, it’s always her._ **

**_Her dad answers the door, a dish towel draped across his shoulder from where he had been making their dinner._ **

**_“Officer Swanson.”_ **

**_“Evenin' Mr. Mitchell,” he says in his low, deep, southern accent._ **

**_Beca’s already terrified._ **

**_“Everything okay?” Warren asks._ **

**_“'Fraid not, Warren,” He says. “We're gonna have to bring Beca in for questionin'. I'm sorry.”_ **

**_“May I ask what for?”_ **

**_She can sense the look Swanson gives to her father. A look as if to say “come on, dude, you read the paper. You know what’s happened. You know what your daughter did.”_ **

**_It happens every time. One slip up at a run-down gas station – one accidental theft – and Beca’s suddenly to blame for everything._ **

**_Officer Swanson is patient though, and he explains why he’s here. Explains what happened at the barn. Explains the consequences. Explains that eye witnesses saw a young girl that looked suspiciously like Beca at the scene._ **

**_“Yes, it was me,” she wants to say. “It was me. I did it. Take me.”_ **

**_She wants to be brave like her mother._ **

**_But she’s not brave. Maybe she never will be. Because she stays still. Stays quiet. She lets her dad leave with the officer. The only thing registering in her brain is that the pots on the stove are boiling over._ **

**_It’s only when she hears the police car drive away that she lets it all out; heavy sobs shaking through her whole body._ **

**_Her head is throbbing, and she can still feel the burning of the flames on her skin._ **

* * *

“Your dad took the blame?” Chloe asks, after Beca recalls the story to her. She’s sitting on Beca’s desk chair now, but Beca is still standing still in the same spot. She hasn’t moved.

And hearing that – hearing Chloe ask that question – sets something off in her mind. She stood there that day and she let her dad take the blame. She let her dad serve in prison for years, just to keep her safe. And still, she turned into what she is now. Turned to drugs. Turned to a life of recklessness.

No wonder he can’t stand to look at her.

“I didn’t start it, Chloe. You _have_ to know that.”

“But you… Your dad. He took that blame for you. Everyone thought it was him. Everyone thought he was some psycho. Do you know Bumper was in that barn?”

Beca looks at Chloe, clenching her jaw. She knows all this. She knows it all and yet, she’s still here.

“This is the only thing that helps me deal with what I’ve done.”

“Your dad is innocent. You… You’re innocent.”

“It’s too late now.”

His life is ruined because of her, and she’s aware of this.

Chloe sighs, biting her lip.

“It doesn’t matter what they think.”

Beca closes her eyes, letting out a strained laugh. “Can you stop being so calm and just tell me you hate me? Yell at me, punch me, call me a piece of shit, I don’t care. Just… Please,” She begs. “Stop being nice.”

“I don’t hate you, Beca.”

Beca lets a tear fall down her cheek before angrily wiping it away with the back of her hand.

“I do.”

Chloe stands up, walking over to her. She uses her fingers to lift Beca’s chin up so she can look at her. She had no idea Beca was like this. So... damaged. She had no idea what Beca had been going through all these years. While people were spreading around rumors that Beca was just some low-life drug addict, Beca was here still mourning the loss of her mother, and her father – in a sense – too, and she was alone, and she was doing whatever she could just to feel something. Even if that meant resorting to drugs.

And Chloe had no idea.

“You’re not a bad person, Becs,” she whispers. Beca looks up at her. “You may have made some bad decisions but you’re not a bad person.” Beca blinks, sucking in a quick breath as Chloe’s hand moves around to the back of her neck, her other hand joining it.  “ _God_ , all these years I never knew what you were going through.”

They lean their foreheads together and Beca’s hands come up to hold onto Chloe’s arms for leverage, and she feels okay.

She feels like if she were to fall through the earth right now, Chloe would catch her at the bottom.

“I’m going to quit,” she says, but Chloe shushes her. “I’m sorry,” she says, but Chloe shushes her. “I don’t do them as often as I used to,” but once again, Chloe shushes her.

“I just need you to answer me one question.”

“Anything.”

“On Monday,” Chloe sniffles. “Jesse saw you with Luke. He said you went somewhere with him at like two in the morning. Did you… Did he do anything to you?”

“No,” she simply says, shaking her head. “Not a chance. I wouldn’t ever let him...”

“Okay,” Chloe whispers, sensing Beca’s distress.

There’s a short silence and Beca’s about to say sorry again when she feels Chloe’s lips on hers. And she couldn’t have stopped the sob that she let out even if she wanted to. It’s like the day at the museum all over again; Chloe kissing her after she’d spilled her heart out.

Beca’s starting to wonder if this is going to become a hobby of theirs.

But she kisses back – of course she does – and she puts everything she can into the kiss. All of her I’m sorry’s, all of her thank you’s, all of her please don’t leave me’s.

She thinks Chloe gets it.

//

By the end of July – another couple of weeks of digging up weeds and planting flowers and mowing the lawn – Beca can’t take any more.

Every time she sees Chloe, she thinks about that night. Every time Chloe brings out some breakfast or a snack for Beca, all she wants to do is kiss Chloe like she’s never kissed anyone before. To thank her for giving her a chance. To tell her that she’s the best person she’s ever met. But Chloe’s parents could see them at any moment, and Beca’s aware of how they can be.

When her father tells her that he has to go to Maine for the weekend when Beca gets home from the Beale household one evening, Beca immediately texts Chloe and tells her to come over.

Chloe tells her mom she’s sleeping at Tom’s and because her mother thinks that Tom is her new boyfriend, she lets her.

That’s one of the things Chloe dislikes most about her mother. If Tom was a girl, her mom would tell her _no_ she has chores to do, or _no_ she has to help bake a cake for her Aunt Judy, or _no_ she needs to do literally _anything_ else.

Chloe will tell her she has a new friend and her mom will get excited until she realizes that this friend is a girl and a possible love interest for her daughter and she prays that it doesn’t come to that. When Chloe first got dumped by a girl in sophomore year and she spent hours immerged in her art, Chloe’s mom had immediately asked “what about Mrs Applebaum’s son?” trying her hardest to keep the hope out of her voice.

Chloe knows that her mother will never forgive her if she found out she was seeing Beca.

So she had text Tom, after finally getting his number at another one of Jesse’s parties a couple of days ago, telling him that she’s at his house if anybody asks, and he’s actually a decent human being and had text her “aye aye captain” with the poop emoji. He’s weird but he covers for her, and in return she promises to play guitar hero with him next time they’re at a party.

Beca greets Chloe on her doorstep again, after Chloe gets out of her car and locks it behind her. It’s a particularly cool night compared to the other summer nights they’ve spent in Beca’s small house, so Chloe’s not surprised that Beca has the fire on.

It’s cozy and it feels a little like home.

Beca takes Chloe’s coat off for her again, places a kiss on her cheek, and leads Chloe to the living room.

“You been okay today?”

Beca nods her head, immediately knowing what Chloe is asking her.

Ever since that day, Chloe has been keeping an eye on her habit. Beca didn’t think she needed that in her life, but Chloe distracts her, and Beca’s addicted to the way Chloe makes her feel way more than she’s addicted to the drugs she hasn’t touched in over 2 weeks.

And God, it’s been hard. Especially with Luke texting her every other day, but thanks to Chloe she’s managed.

The first four days were the worst. She’d wake up aching, cold and feeling nauseous, wanting nothing more than to stick a syringe in her arm and feel that high sensation one more time. But she had lit a cigarette and called Chloe, and Chloe helped her calm down with soothing words and quiet promises.

It didn’t surprise her that her dad didn’t notice that she was crying herself to sleep, in complete agony, aching for _something_ for four whole days. She thinks maybe she deserved it for what she did to him.

But she didn’t want Chloe to see her in that state, so she had made her promise that she would stay away, and that she’d text her if she needed anything.

Luke had texted her a couple of days ago too, asking if she needed anything. With no context, that would sound sweet, but Beca knows that it was another way of him asking for money. She had told him no though, with no explanation, and she cried when Chloe told her she was proud of her.

She’s quitting them more for herself than she is for Chloe, but she still doesn’t want to disappoint her.

Countless times, she’s hovered above the toilet, wanting nothing more than to drop them in and flush them for good. She’s not ready for that though – not yet – so instead she keeps them in her closet under loose clothes and loses herself in Chloe instead of the high that the drugs bring.

It feels way better anyway.

They lay together in front of the fire, Chloe telling Beca about a new book she’s reading as Beca’s old record player softly plays The XX in the background.

It’s when Chloe calls Beca out for staring at her lips for the third time that Beca asks Chloe if she can kiss her again. Of course, Chloe says yes, and Beca immediately pulls her closer, their legs entwining as she presses her lips lovingly to Chloe’s.

She’s aware of the fact that her breath probably still has a hint of smoke to it from the cigarette she had before Chloe came over, but Chloe doesn’t complain. She kisses Beca back with as much passion and fever as she can, and Beca lets herself melt into Chloe.

Beca finds herself underneath Chloe, and it reminds her of before, only with their roles reversed. Reminds her of before she told Chloe everything, and before she thought she was going to lose Chloe forever.

Chloe straddles her, sitting on her lap as she removes her own shirt. Beca leans up into a sitting position, eyeing Chloe’s almost bare chest. She wraps her left arm around Chloe’s waist as the other one strokes up Chloe’s stomach, and she leans forward, mouth attaching to the swell of Chloe’s left breast as her other hand grabs Chloe’s right one.

“Oh,” Chloe breathes out with a smile, followed by a sharp intake of breath, and Beca smiles around Chloe’s soft skin, sighing when Chloe’s hands tangle in her hair.

She lets out a soft groan against Chloe’s skin when Chloe’s hips buck, grinding against her slowly. She looks up at her, smiling as she pulls her face down to kiss her again. She runs her hands through Chloe’s hair, lightly scratching her scalp as Chloe scoots backwards a little so she can push Beca down and lay on top of her.

“Always knew you were a bottom,” Chloe whispers, and Beca laughs as she pulls back slowly, tucking Chloe’s hair behind her ear.

Instead of saying anything in response, she slowly runs one hand down Chloe’s stomach, putting it in her jeans and gently cupping her, basking in the moan that Chloe lets out above her. She sounds beautiful.

She _feels_ beautiful.

She swears she feels her heart stop when Chloe grinds down onto her hand, practically begging for any sort of friction.

“God,” Beca breathes out, pulling Chloe closer by the waist as she sits up again, kissing in between Chloe’s breasts as one hand runs up her back, the other staying in Chloe’s pants.

She unclasps Chloe’s bra, resisting the urge to fist pump in victory at being able to do it on her first try. The fire crackles and Chloe is beautiful, straddling her hips and breathing heavily above her.

She’s floating or falling, or neither.

Chloe is better than any drug she’s ever used.

Breathing heavily, Chloe reaches down to the hem of Beca’s shirt and pulls it off, and Beca removes her hand from Chloe’s pants to throw her shirt on the floor. They manage to get the rest of their clothes off quickly, hushed moans and soft breaths along with gentle kisses pressed against lips as they undress each other.

Chloe pushes Beca down on the sofa, laying over her and immediately letting out a hitched breath as their bare bodies press together for the first time. It’s warm and soft and Beca’s never felt so loved in her whole life. Chloe’s finger runs down Beca’s neck, stopping at the scar on her collarbone. She leans down to press her lips to it and Beca shivers as her hands scratch up Chloe’s back.

Chloe straddles her hips, and Beca sits up again, hand resting on Chloe’s stomach. It’s only when Chloe’s hand covers hers, leading her hand down to her center, that Beca notices the lump in her throat.

She won’t cry though.

God damn it, she’s cried enough in front of Chloe as it is.

Her hands stroke through Chloe, and Beca breathes in Chloe’s heavy breaths as their lips crash together again. She uses her free hand to wrap around Chloe’s waist, as her other hand slowly strokes where Chloe needs her the most. And she’s wet. So God damn wet, and so God damn beautiful.

Her moans blend with the song playing in the background – Beca can’t concentrate for long enough to remember what song it is – and it’s doing nothing to subdue the ache she has in her own center.

Chloe grinds herself down on Beca’s fingers, tongue pushing past Beca’s lips as she moans in response, and Beca can’t help but groan too, her fingers speeding up their actions as she tries to bring Chloe to the edge.

She watches as Chloe pulls back, their foreheads resting together as they look into each other’s eyes. It’s a little too much, a little _too_ intimate, and Beca squeezes her eyes shut as she concentrates on making Chloe feel good.

Chloe’s hands are scratching down her back, and she knows that she’ll have scratch marks in the morning but she doesn’t care. She attaches her mouth to Chloe’s neck and she whimpers as Chloe’s moans grow louder and her hips grind down harder.

When Chloe comes, it’s with a soft “oh shit,” and an unspoken “I love you,” moaned into Beca’s hair.

She doesn’t say it but Beca feels it. Feels it in the way Chloe kisses her and holds her.

Beca thinks that maybe Chloe is a drug that she’s not afraid to get addicted to.

//

It takes another two weeks for Beca to realize that she’s definitely in love with Chloe.

She googles ‘how to fall out of love’ before realizing – after remembering that Chloe hasn’t left her pathetic ass yet – that maybe Chloe might love her back.

**Chloe – 9:46PM:**   
You free?

**Beca – 9:46PM:**  
Dads in New Orleans

**Chloe – 9:47PM:**  
Parents are asleep. They’re leaving for Florida in the morning

**Beca – 9:48PM:**  
Come over?  
We’re not watching any movies though

**Chloe – 9:49PM:**  
I had other plans for us

Chloe’s at her house in ten minutes, a new record for her.

It’s Chloe who lowers Beca down onto the bed this time when they’re both undressed, and she loves feeling Beca’s skin against her own. Beca is skinny and she feels frail but she’s perfect for Chloe and their bodies don’t fit together like a jigsaw puzzle but their hearts do.

She’s missed touching her. The last time they’d had sex was last week because Chloe’s parents have been asking questions lately about where she’s been, and they always interrupt whenever she’s talking to Beca in the yard.

It’s been so hard, watching Beca out of her bedroom window and not being able to touch her. It’s been hard, hanging out with Stacie and Aubrey and wanting nothing more than for Beca to be there by her side.

“I missed you,” she whispers into Beca’s mouth as she hovers above her, hands starting to wander down Beca’s stomach.

“You saw me today.”

“But I haven’t touched you in days.”

She always knows when Beca is about to flip them over. She gives no warning but Chloe can always sense it, so when she feels Beca’s bare leg sliding up hers, she stops her by putting her hands on Beca’s shoulders.

“I want you,” she whispers as her lips attach to Beca’s jaw. She feels Beca’s whimper against her ear and she smiles because damn, she really has missed this.

She trails kisses down her jaw and over her neck, to the other side where the scar is on Beca’s collarbone. She doesn’t know why she likes to kiss the scar there but she does. Maybe it’s because it reminds her that Beca is real. She’s not perfect. She’s not made of porcelain like she feels. She’s made of flesh and bone and she has scars like Chloe, and despite her flaws she’s still beautiful anyway.

“I rewrote some of my manuscript,” Beca says, and Chloe smiles because of course, Beca would choose now to tell Chloe this.

She still asks Beca what she wrote about though, as she kisses down Beca’s chest, down the dip in between her breasts and the clenched stomach that relaxes when Chloe strokes down it.

“You,” Beca replies, sliding her hand down the mattress to hold onto Chloe’s. Her other hand strokes Chloe’s hair as she feels Chloe kissing her way down her abdomen, nails teasing her thighs with her free hand.

“What about me?”

She hears Beca’s breath hitch as she kisses in between her thighs, and she knows that Beca is starting to get frustrated but she likes this; likes teasing her until she can’t take it anymore.

“I wrote you into my story.” Beca’s hips buck up. “It sort of turned into a cliché love story.”

Chloe smiles. “You hate clichés.”

“But I love you.”

Chloe stops.

She looks up at Beca with wide eyes, expecting to see her looking at her. But Beca’s eyes are squeezed shut and she looks like she regrets what she said.

She crawls back up Beca’s body, straddling her hips as she caresses her face.

“Open your eyes,” Chloe whispers, leaning in to kiss her forehead. Beca hesitates before opening them. “Did you mean that?” She asks, her thumbs stroking over Beca’s cheekbones.

Beca nods as she clears her throat, and Chloe smiles. She leans in and kisses Beca again, losing herself in the love that Beca has for her. Kissing her like she never wants to kiss anyone else. (And _God_ , she doesn’t.)

She smiles and she cries and she kisses down Beca’s small, pale body again, and it’s the first time she makes Beca come with a loud moan instead of quiet barely audible whimpers.

Chloe doesn’t say it back though, and when they’re lying together that night in Beca’s bed, nothing but the sound of Chloe’s even breaths to soothe Beca into slumber, she almost says it again. Instead, she chokes. She shakes. She cries silently with her back facing Chloe’s sleeping body. She kisses the back of Chloe’s hand and whispers a soft goodnight into the silent room, but Chloe cannot hear her.

Chloe’s woken up a few hours later when she hears something that sounds like glass smashing coming from the bathroom. She quickly puts her underwear and one of Beca’s shirts on, rushing to the bathroom as fast as she can.

“Beca?” she calls out as she taps on the door. Beca doesn’t answer though, and she can hear rattling and she’s scared. She pushes the door open, surprised to find that it isn’t locked, and immediately gasps when she sees Beca’s shaking hands trying to open one of her small Ziploc bags.

She was doing so well.

She’s in front of Beca within seconds, prying the unopened packet out of her trembling hands and throwing it to the floor. Beca is sobbing, and Chloe brings her close, wrapping her arms around her as Beca shakes in her arms.

“I need–” Beca starts but Chloe shushes her, stroking the back of Beca’s head to calm her down.

“Shh, you don’t need it,” she whispers, “You don’t need it.” Her eyes squeeze shut at the sight of the powder, and she’s so glad that she managed to stop Beca before she could do it.

“I’m sorry,” Beca sobs. Tears stain her shirt and it breaks Chloe’s heart that Beca thinks she has to apologize. She knows that Beca’s having a panic attack, and she knows what helps her calm down.

“Count to ten,” Chloe whispers, pulling back so she can look Beca in the eye. She looks so small, so vulnerable, so scared. So different to how she looked earlier on in the night. “Count to ten. You’re okay. Just count,” she says, because she’s not going to let Beca ruin this for herself when she’s been doing so well.

Beca counts to ten slowly, breathing a little ragged, and her hands are shaking when Chloe holds onto them. She soothes her with soft kisses on her cheeks and forehead, helping her count along.

(Beca doesn’t tell Chloe that the only reason she wanted to do it was because she didn’t tell her she loved her back.

It’s selfish and out of order and she would never say something so manipulative. And after tonight, she’ll never think anything like that again, because if Chloe doesn’t love her, why is she here?)

Chloe pulls Beca with her through the house, back to her room, not wanting to leave her in the bathroom in case she tries doing it again. She pulls Beca’s pack of cigarettes out of her jacket pocket and passes it to her, along with her lighter.

Beca’s eyes are red and she’s shivering, but Chloe still loves her more than ever.

She pulls a cigarette out and puts it in Beca’s mouth, lighting the end for her and smiling slightly when Beca deflates, sighing in relief.

When Beca falls asleep fifteen minutes later, Chloe goes to the bathroom to clean up the broken glass. She resists the urge to throw the drugs down the toilet and flush them away for good, because they’re not hers to get rid of, and she trusts that Beca will do it when she’s ready.

Chloe walks back into the bedroom, smiling softly at the image of Beca quietly snoring with one leg sticking out of the sheets. She fits herself in behind Beca and puts her arm around her waist, and the last thing on her mind before she falls asleep is that she’s pretty sure their bodies were made to fit together like this.


	4. part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for this chapter: abuse from a parental figure, mentions of drug use

 

“ _We're never done with killing time / can I kill it with you / 'til the veins run red and blue? / we come around here all the time / got a lot to not do / let me kill it with you / you pick me up and take me home again / head out the window again / we're hollow like the bottles that we drain / you drape your wrists over the steering wheel / pulses can drive from here / we might be hollow, but we're brave / and I like you / I love these roads where the houses don't change (and I like you) / where we can talk like there's something to say (and I like you) / I'm glad that we stopped kissing the tar on the highway (and I like you) / we move in the tree streets / I'd like it if you stayed._ ” – 400 lux, lorde

* * *

**_The third time she’s caught shoplifting, she ends up falling down a set of stone stairs while running away from the shopkeeper._ **

**_Her dad helps her clean her grazes._ **

**_They don’t talk, but Beca knows that he’s disappointed in her. He’s always disappointed in her. This has started to become a routine ever since Warren was released, and she knows he’s no longer proud of her. She knows she’s no longer his little girl._ **

**_She remembers the boy she’d met in Barden City two weeks ago. Remembers the number he scrawled out on a napkin in the diner that he had taken her to. Remembers his offer._ **

**_She escapes when she knows her dad is asleep, using the bucket outside of her bedroom window to prop the window open in case it shuts while she’s gone. It’s a cold night, and she waits until she’s far up the road until she dials his number._ **

**_“Yo.”_ **

**_“Hi,” she says quietly. She can hear someone talking in the background – a girl, she thinks – and she doesn’t realize she’s been silent until she hears Luke asking who this is. “It’s uh, Beca,” she says. “Beca Mitchell?”_ **

**_“Ahh, Becky!” She sighs. He doesn’t hear her correct him. “What can I do for you?”_ **

**_He’s oddly polite for an nineteen year old drug dealer._ **

**_“Um,” she breathes out, sitting down on the sidewalk, “Is there any way you could come pick me up?”_ **

**_“Are you okay?” He sounds concerned._ **

**_She ignores that._ **

**_“Yeah, I just need… I need you to pick me up.”_ **

**_“Text me your address, I’ll be about twenty minutes.”_ **

**_It takes twenty five minutes for Luke to find her. His eyes are warm and inviting, and she thinks maybe he’s worried about her._ **

**_“Is this a booty call?”_ **

**_She clenches her jaw. She doesn’t say anything as she gets in the passenger seat, ignoring the questions he asks her: “What’s with the bandages and plasters?”, “Is there a reason you called me?”, “Seriously, what is it you want?”_ **

**_It’s only when she walks into his house – or crack den or whatever it is – that she realizes she’s being stupid. There are other people there playing poker, who Luke introduces as Cynthia Rose, Tommy, Justin, Jessica, and Ashley. She should be ecstatic that she’s making new friends, but she’s exhausted and her body aches and she needs a distraction._ **

**_He takes her to his bedroom, and she ignores the hollers in the background from Tommy and Justin._ **

**_“What do you need?” he asks her._ **

**_She has no idea._ **

**_He sits down beside her, and instead of feeling scared, she feels safe. Just a little bit. She looks at him, and she wants to kiss him, but she doesn’t._ **

**_“Whatever you have that’ll make me forget everything,” she says._ **

**_“What you’re looking for is alcohol.”_ **

**_“Funny.”_ **

**_He puts a hand on her thigh._ **

**_“You want some weed?”_ **

**_She laughs because man, it feels so weird when he says it out loud. She’s built up all this courage and made this seem more serious than it actually is. It’s only weed. Illegal in Barden, but not exactly life-ruining._ **

**_She watches as he lights up the joint, and it reeks. Smells worse than the cigarettes she occasionally smokes, and worse than her father’s infamous fish pie._ **

**_With a shake of her head to rid herself of her thoughts – she’s come here to forget about her father and what she did to him, after all – she takes the joint from Luke’s outstretched hand._ **

**_She ignores the arm he puts around her shoulder as he leads her back into the room where Jessica, Tommy, and Justin are using their poker cards to line up three piles of white powder. If she didn’t feel so God damn floaty at the effects the weed had on her, she’d probably be scared._ **

**_Instead, she joins in with their poker game, passing a joint around the circle as the weight of Luke’s arm feels like it’s crushing her with every passing second._ **

* * *

**Luke – 1:14AM:**  

haven’t seen u in a while

 **Beca – 1:16AM:**  
told you, I’m quitting

 **Luke – 1:17AM:**  
sure  
see u in a week then?

 **Beca – 1:18AM:**  
fuck you

 **Luke – 1:19AM:**  
language Becky

//

Beca never really pegged herself as a romantic person.

Granted, she’s never actually had anybody to romance so she hasn’t had much practice anyway, but still, she’s not romantic. She’s not sweet. She’s not cute. She’s not someone who lives her life to make other people happy.

But Chloe brings out a side of her that Beca never knew existed. She makes Beca _want_ to be better. She makes her smile and laugh and she makes Beca worry when she doesn’t text her back, afraid that something might have happened. She makes Beca afraid to be alone again.

It terrifies her.

Which is why, when Chloe asks her one day what it is exactly that they’re doing, Beca almost runs. Almost. Because even though whatever _this_ is terrifies her, she’s not about to lose the best thing in her life right now.

“What do you mean?”

Chloe stands up from where she’d been lying down reading a book on Beca’s bed, and walks over to where Beca is sitting at her desk with her laptop in front of her.

“What are you doing?” Chloe asks, ignoring Beca’s question as she fits herself on the chair with Beca, and Beca instinctively budges up, wrapping her arm around the back of the chair so Chloe can fit.

“Writing. What do you mean?” she repeats.

“You like me, right?”

Beca responds immediately. “Of course I do.”

“And I like you. A lot.”

Beca smiles. “That’s gay.”

Chloe smirks, playfully smacking Beca’s thigh. “So does that mean we’re girlfriends?”

Beca’s never had a girlfriend before. Or a boyfriend. Or… anything, really. So she’s not sure if that’s what they are. Her mom and dad loved each other, from what she remembers, but they were never like she is with Chloe. She’s not stupid. She knows that what they’re doing is considered being _together_ , but the thought of having that with someone scares her. It always has. Because at any moment, Chloe could turn around and break Beca, and Beca’s not quite sure she could handle that.

She knows Chloe though. She knows that she’d never do that. Knows that Chloe wouldn’t do anything to hurt Beca, and in return she’d never do anything to hurt Chloe.

Which is why she nods, looking beside her to see that Chloe is staring down at the desk.

“I think we are. Is that okay with you?”

Chloe smiles, looking at Beca.

“That’s more than okay,” she whispers, leaning in to kiss Beca.

//

If Beca had friends, she’d talk to them about Chloe Beale nonstop.

But because she doesn’t have friends, she writes about her instead.

She never pictured herself writing about a girl she’s in love with, and she never pictured herself as one of those people who has a picture of their girlfriend as their lockscreen on their phone. But both of these are true, and as much as she’d like to say she hates herself for being so cheesy, she thinks she’s been hating herself for too long.

She gets to see Chloe’s face every time she unlocks her phone, and she gets to see Chloe every day when she’s working in the yard, and she falls asleep to Chloe’s face every night when they skype before bed on the nights that Chloe can’t sleep over at her house, and she loves it. She loves Chloe, and she loves the chances she gets to call Chloe her girlfriend, and she’s pretty sure it’s the best feeling in the world.

They don’t talk about the fact that Beca is leaving for New York in a month.

They kiss and joke together and make love when they’re alone, and Chloe sometimes helps Beca in the yard even when her mom tells her that it’s not Chloe’s job to help. Chloe can tell that her parents are getting suspicious at her behavior lately, but she can’t bring it in herself to care.

It feels like a movie. The secret meet-ups at Beca’s place when her dad is away, the nights they spend texting until four in the morning, and the longing glances they send each other when Chloe is staring outside her bedroom window at Beca mowing the lawn.

Neither of them have ever had that with anybody.

Chloe wakes up one day to the sound of tapping on the window, and she gets up to see Beca outside with a cheeky grin on her face. She opens her window, stretching her neck out to see Beca with a handful of stones standing in her back yard.

“What are you doing?” Chloe whisper-yells, and Beca smiles as she picks up a couple of pieces of paper that were resting on the ground, weighed down by a few more stones.

She holds one of them up above her head, and Chloe rolls her eyes.

**ᴘᴜᴛ sᴏᴍᴇ ᴄʟᴏᴛʜᴇs ᴏɴ. ᴅʀᴇss ᴡᴀʀᴍ.**

Chloe’s about to shut her window and get dressed so she can meet Beca downstairs but before she can, Beca whisper-yells “wait!” and holds up another piece of paper.

**ʙʀɪɴɢ ᴀ ʙʟᴀɴᴋᴇᴛ. ᴍʏ ᴛʀᴜᴄᴋ ɪs ʀᴏᴜɴᴅ ғʀᴏɴᴛ.**

She gets dressed in record time, almost forgetting the blanket, before quietly making her way down the stairs. She still has time to count them as she goes along – nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen – and she doesn’t even have the patience to put her shoes on fully before she’s out of the door, a shoe in one hand and a blanket in the other.

Beca is sitting in her truck looking nervous, and she smiles when she sees Chloe. She gets out, taking the blanket off of Chloe as Chloe puts her other shoe on. Once that’s done, she opens the passenger seat door for Chloe and kisses her on the cheek before shutting the door and going round to the driver’s side.

Chloe looks over at the time when Beca turns the engine on, a little shocked to see that it’s 2AM.

“Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise.”

Chloe smiles, leaning over to kiss Beca as she pulls onto the road.

Beca leans over and turns the radio on, and Chloe smiles as Lord Huron plays softly through the speakers. She looks out of the window before looking back at Beca, grinning as she leans in again.

“You’re my favorite person in the world,” she whispers, kissing Beca’s cheek, and all Beca can do is smile as she reaches out to hold Chloe’s hand.

They drive for twenty minutes until they reach the beach, and Chloe knows it’s the beach because she’s taken this route with her parents countless times when she was younger. It takes her back. She hasn’t been here in years, and she wonders where along the line she’d gone wrong. Where her parents one day woke up and never thought to take her to the beach again.

“Is this okay?” Beca asks. Chloe hadn’t even noticed that they’d pulled up in the small parking lot.

She turns to look at Beca, seeing the worried look on her face.

“Yeah,” she nods, before looking out at the beach. “Of course.”

She feels Beca kiss her cheek again, and then Beca’s getting out of the truck and coming around to her side to open the door for her. She takes Beca’s hand as Beca helps her out, pecking her on the lips before she lets Beca take the blanket and a basket out of the back seat.

“A beach picnic?” Chloe asks, and Beca turns around with a smile. “Did you eat a Nicholas Sparks novel tonight?”

“Shut up,” Beca laughs. “We haven’t actually been on a proper date yet, so… Chloe Beale, will you go on a date with me?”

“I guess it’s too late to say no.” Chloe grins, taking Beca’s arm – her hands are full but that doesn’t mean Chloe can’t drag her along like usual – and she pulls her towards the empty beach, the sand already getting in her shoes.

Beca lays the blanket on the sand and weighs it down with her sneakers and Chloe’s shoes, and she puts the basket on the blanket and sits down, patting the spot beside her. She smiles at Chloe when Chloe kisses her on the cheek, and she’ll never get bored of this. Being able to kiss and touch Chloe whenever she wants.

She pulls two big candles out of the basket and wedges them in the sand in front of them, taking the lighter out of her pocket and lighting them both.

“So romantic,” Chloe whispers, and Beca smiles, taking two plates wrapped in cellophane out of the basket.

“For you, m’lady.”

She passes the plate to Chloe, and Chloe unwraps it, smiling when she sees a cheese and pickle sandwich along with a few Dorito chips.

“Okay, it’s not the best food but it’s all I could get my hands on last–”

“–It’s perfect,” Chloe interrupts, putting a hand over Beca’s. She knows Beca doesn’t have the money to go spending on food for their romantic Nicholas Sparks type picnic date, and just being here with Beca is enough; she doesn’t need fancy or expensive food. Fancy and expensive is overrated.

Beca pulls her phone out of her pocket and puts one of her many playlists on, making sure it isn’t too loud before she puts her phone down on top of the basket.

“My favorite,” Chloe says with a grin around her cheese and pickle sandwich, as the soft tune of Come Back When You Can by Barcelona comes on.

“ _Come back when you can_ ,” Chloe sings along when the chorus comes. “ _Let go, you’ll understand. You’ve done nothing at all to make me love you less. So come back when you can._ ”

She feels Beca looking at her, and she looks beside her to see her girlfriend smiling.

“What?” Chloe asks.

It’s all innocent and so-Chloe, that Beca has to resist the urge to just kiss that smile off of her face because Chloe knows exactly what she’s thinking.

“You’re quite beautiful.”

“Quite?”

Beca shakes her head, grinning, before leaning in to press a gentle kiss to Chloe’s temple. She lingers there for a moment, and Chloe’s eyes are shut with a content smile on her face, and this might just be Beca’s favorite place in the world. On a beach under the stars, having a picnic with the girl she’s so very head over heels in love with.

“Becs?”

“Hmm?”

“Why are we here at 2AM?”

Beca looks at Chloe, before looking out at the sea.

“Because nobody’s here. Nobody can see you with me.”

Chloe swallows the bite of her sandwich and puts the rest back on her plate, looking over at Beca who refuses to look back at her.

“Becs.”

She makes a noise as if to tell Chloe she’s listening, but Chloe wants to see her face. She puts a hand on her thigh, waiting for Beca to look at her. And eventually she does, looking guilty, as if she’s about to get scolded for something she hasn’t done.

“I don’t care if people see us together, you know that, right? You shouldn’t either.”

Beca breathes in, slowly letting the air out of her nose as she looks down at the blanket. Chloe’s hand is still on her thigh and it’s burning.

“I don’t mind that we’re keeping us a secret. I wouldn’t want to be seen with me either.”

“You know I want to be with you. Secret or not.”

“Nobody matters to me like you do, Chloe. I don’t want people saying or doing things to you because of me.”

“Hey.” Chloe’s voice is soft as she moves closer to Beca, hooking her finger under Beca’s chin to get her to look at her. She moves her hand to the side of Beca’s head, tucking her hair behind her ear. “It’s exactly that. Nobody else matters,” she whispers. “It’s just you and me.”

Beca leans in, forehead resting against Chloe’s as she closes her eyes. She reaches a hand up to cup Chloe’s cheek, her thumb gently stroking over Chloe’s cheekbone as the two of them tilt their heads, and Beca’s breathless already, before the kiss has even started.

Chloe never fails to take her breath away. Just being around Chloe causes Beca’s insides to melt and her resolve to crumble, and she’s so in love that it doesn’t hurt anymore. Nothing hurts when Chloe is with her.

“Have you ever been in love?” Beca murmurs, and they’re still kissing and Chloe’s hand is making its way slowly down her arm, and then they’re holding hands and it’s the grossest and most romantic thing that has ever happened to Beca.

“Yes,” Chloe simply answers, tongue tentatively stroking across Beca’s lip as the kiss deepens, and they’re both out of breath but neither of them seem to want to stop.

“Who was it?”

Chloe wants to lower Beca down on the blanket and take her time kissing her, loving her, letting her know exactly how much she means to her. But this kiss is escalating too fast, and it’s the type of kiss that Chloe knows will lead to them having sex right here on the beach and as much as she’s always wanted to do that, now is not the time.

She lets go of Beca’s hand and runs her fingers through Beca’s hair, her other hand still holding herself up, and she tames the kiss down with soft, almost-kisses pressed to Beca’s cheek and the corner of her mouth, and then they’re both breathing softly with their foreheads pressed together, lips swollen and eyes closed.

“You.” Chloe whispers.

“What?”

Chloe swallows, kissing Beca again before pulling back and opening her eyes. She wraps her arms around her knees and looks out at the ocean in front of them.

“You asked me who I was in love with.” She hears Beca shift beside her until she’s sat cross-legged, and she can feel her staring at the side of her head. So she turns her head to the side, resting it on her legs, and she looks at Beca. “It’s you.”

She watches Beca breathe in, letting the breath out quickly before smiling, and it’s the most beautiful thing Chloe has ever seen.

“You’re in love with me.”

“I’m _disgustingly_ in love with you.”

Beca grins, biting her lip, and she leans in, resting her forehead against Chloe’s shoulder and closes her eyes.

She’s not crying but she might as well be, because Chloe Beale is in love with her and she’s in love with Chloe Beale, and it’s the best feeling in the world.

//

She drives Chloe back at 5AM when Chloe tells her that her parents will be waking up soon to go to work.

As much as she wants to stay here on the beach forever with Chloe, the sun is starting to rise and soon the beach will be busy, and she selfishly doesn’t want to share Chloe with anybody else, so they pack up and set off back to the town.

She feels bad that Chloe keeps yawning on the way back, and she apologizes for keeping her up all night, but Chloe takes her hand and tells her she wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else tonight, and Beca has to resist the urge to pull up on the side of the road and just kiss Chloe until they fall asleep together in the back seat.

She takes a quick detour, and she knows that Chloe is tired because she doesn’t question it, and Chloe doesn’t actually realize they’re not at her house until Beca pulls up and she looks out of the window to see the Barden landfill.

“What are we doing here?” Chloe asks. Her eyes are still half-closed and she has the blanket around her, curled up on the passenger seat.

Beca reaches in the back, and Chloe’s mouth opens to say something when Beca sits with her shoebox in her shaking hands.

“Becs,” she whispers, sitting up, blanket falling off of her shoulders as she reaches over to put a hand on Beca’s. “Are you…”

“I want you to be with me,” Beca says. “I want to show you that I’m serious about us.”

“You don’t have to prove anything to me baby,” Chloe leans in, hugging Beca just as a tear falls down Beca’s face, and she wipes it because she’s not crying now. Not when she needs to be strong.

She lets Chloe hug her though, at least until she feels calmer, and she pulls away with a kiss to Chloe’s temple and gets out of the car. Chloe follows behind her, blanket draped around her shoulders as she follows her underneath a broken part of the fence.

Beca’s standing there, the shoebox in her hands as she looks down at it, and it’s so calm. All Chloe can do is stand back and watch, because Beca looks so small. So fragile and scared. But she knows that’s not the case. It’s the complete opposite. She knows that Beca is being strong. She knows that this is the bravest thing Beca has and will ever do.

She approaches her quietly, wrapping an arm around her waist, and Beca leans in to her.

“Take your time,” Chloe whispers.

And then Beca throws it.

She’s done wasting time on the drugs. She’s doesn’t need to take any more time with them. And as soon as the taped up box leaves her hands, as she throws it as far as she can, a heavy weight leaves her shoulders and she breathes. She breathes in and out slowly, and she looks at Chloe and she just breathes.

“I’m done taking my time,” Beca says, and Chloe is looking at her with so much love that Beca’s not sure what to do with it all.

So she kisses her and she thanks her for being there for her, and Chloe tells her that she’s so proud of her and for the first time in a long time, Beca feels loved.

//

Chloe sighs as she gets the note wrong, counting to five before starting again.

She runs her fingers over the keys, getting about halfway through the song before she presses the wrong key again.

She curses, taking a deep breath.

It’s when she’s about to start playing again that she feels hands on her shoulders, and she lets out a breath of air as she closes her eyes and lets her head fall back as small thumbs press into her shoulders.

“That sounds incredible.”

Chloe smiles, opening her eyes as she tilts her head back further to look up at Beca.

“I can’t get it right.”

Beca leans down and presses a kiss to her hairline, letting go of her shoulders before sitting next to Chloe on the piano bench. She wraps her arm around Chloe’s back, smiling when Chloe scoots closer to her.

“I still think it sounds incredible,” Beca says, reaching up to tuck Chloe’s hair behind her ear. “ _You’re_ incredible.”

“So many compliments today, keep ‘em coming. I’m loving it.”

Beca shakes her head, pushing Chloe’s arm with a laugh.

Chloe looks at her. “You’re supposed to be painting a fence, Miss Mitchell.”

“How could I concentrate when my girlfriend is in here doing wonderful things with her fingers?”

Chloe grins, leaning in to place a small kiss on the corner of Beca’s mouth.

 _Girlfriend._ She never gets bored of that.

“Play for me?” Beca asks. Chloe smiles, counts to five, and starts to play.

Mesmerized, Beca watches as Chloe’s fingers move and bend, stroking the keys with just the right pressure. Seeing it reminds her of how Chloe’s fingers dance over her body like that, gentle and attentive. Her eyes drift closed, listening as Chloe plays the familiar tune of Asos Model Crush so effortlessly.

When Beca opens her eyes, she sees that Chloe’s eyes are closed too. She looks lost in the arrangement, occasionally mouthing numbers to count to the melody. Her hands are nimble, fingers moving with exact precision and grace.

Beca leans forward as she reaches out to move Chloe’s hair off of her shoulder, leaning in to place a soft kiss under Chloe’s ear. She smiles as Chloe’s head moves to the side, exposing more of her neck, and she takes that opportunity to carry on kissing the soft skin there.

When Chloe’s fingers slip and the tune falters, she doesn’t have it in her to continue. Not when Beca is doing that to her. Chloe turns and connects their lips, and for the millionth time since meeting Chloe, Beca almost cries.

She almost cries because every day she asks herself: how has she, a class A screw up, managed to find someone as beautiful and as perfect as Chloe Beale?

She knows she doesn’t deserve her, but for some ungodly reason, Chloe has stayed.

Chloe kisses Beca with everything she has. Lips melt together and hands brush over soft skin, and it feels like she’s in heaven. Especially when Beca pulls her up and pushes her against the piano keys. Of course, the sound that the piano makes at that is loud and obnoxious and it scares her for a second, but they laugh against each other as Beca’s hands grip her hips and her mouth attaches to her neck.

“Wait,” Chloe whispers, and Beca pulls back with a confused look. Chloe wants to kiss away the crease in her forehead; kiss away all her confusion and worry.

Instead, Chloe turns and puts the lid over the piano keys, quickly turning back around and pulling Beca towards her. Beca pushes Chloe up to sit on the piano, and Chloe thinks about how she’s always wanted to make out with someone against this very piano.

She never thought it would be Beca Mitchell.

Chloe never knew she wasn’t okay until Beca came along. Beca, the girl who she’s managed to fall in love with within only a few weeks. The girl who is shaking as her hands hold onto Chloe’s waist to keep her up on the piano. The girl who is completely in love with her too.

She grabs one of Beca’s shaking hands and she feels Beca smile against her lips, and Beca is so small and fragile, but she’s so full of love and adoration. It feels like they could do this for all eternity.

Beca’s hand leaves hers, putting both back on her hips, and they slide up underneath her shirt and over her stomach; her hands are freezing.

She tenses involuntarily and Beca’s hands still.

“Do you want me to stop?” she asks, pulling back, but Chloe is too in love to use words. She shakes her head and pulls Beca’s face towards hers, hands caressing hollow cheeks and thumbs rubbing over her cheekbones.

Beca’s hands stay still for a moment before she carries on, bringing both of them up to rest just underneath Chloe’s breasts. She brushes her thumbs over the fabric of Chloe’s bra, and Chloe subconsciously rocks her hips up, grinding against Beca.

She smiles when Beca lets out a small whimper and it feels so good, knowing she’s making these sounds because of her.

So good that Chloe doesn’t hear the front door close and the quiet gasp from across the room.

She couldn’t have denied this even if she tried. It’s exactly what it looks like. There’s a perfect view of the piano from the front door, and this is certainly not what Mrs. Beale had been prepared to see when she came in from work.

Beca pulls back, almost falling over the piano chair, muttering “shit” under her breath, and Chloe – dazed and very, very turned on – doesn’t realize her mother is standing there with her mouth wide open until it’s too late, and Beca nods her head towards her. Luckily they’re fully clothed, but it still doesn’t stop Chloe from flushing in embarrassment.

Or maybe it’s fear, she’s not sure.

She slips off of the piano, adjusting her shirt to try and make herself look presentable. Her lips sting, or maybe they are still longing for Beca, she’s not quite sure.

Her mother looks like she’s seen a ghost.

“Mom.” Her voice is hoarse.

“Beca, I’d like you to leave.”

It’s her calm voice that terrifies Chloe the most.

Chloe turns to look at Beca, seeing the broken look on her face as she nods at Mrs. Beale. She looks back at her mom, shaking her head.

“No,” Chloe whispers. She clears her throat. “No,” she says louder.

“Chloe.”

“Mom, you don’t understand–”

“–Beca honey, please leave. Let me talk to my daughter alone.”

Chloe’s about to protest again, but Beca is shushing her and telling her it’s okay. She doesn’t tell her she’ll see her later like she usually does, which is what makes Chloe’s eyes well up with tears, because this might be the last time she ever sees Beca, and she’s certainly not going to end things like this.

She grabs Beca’s hand, and she thinks she sees a hint of an apology in Beca’s eyes before Beca pulls her hand away, about to make her way to the back yard.

“No,” Chloe’s mom says. “I don’t want you anywhere near my daughter. Or my home. You’re fired.”

Beca’s face remains neutral the entire time. She nods, and she doesn’t look at Chloe when she leaves through the front door.

Chloe turns to face her mother, not expecting the slap to the side of her face when she does.

The tears that have been threatening to leave eventually spill down her cheeks when she looks up at her mom, and she doesn’t see the woman whom she has looked up to all her life, and she doesn’t see the reflection of her mother’s little girl in her mom’s eyes.

She sees two strangers.

Her mom doesn’t even look sorry, which is what hurts the most.

A fraction of her is thankful that Beca isn’t here to witness this, because she’s sure that Beca wouldn’t have hesitated to hit her back. To chew her up and spit her out and stomp on her afterwards. The other part of her wants nothing more than to just yell for Beca to come back and take her with her.

It all happens so fast. Her mother is telling her that she’s _disgusted_ – in a harsh and venomous tone that Chloe’s never heard before – and she’s telling her that no daughter of hers is going to be seen with someone like Beca Mitchell and “do you know what that’s going to do to our family name?”, and she “thought it was a phase” when Chloe tells her that she likes girls and there’s nothing she can do to stop that.

Chloe’s never seen such hatred in a woman before. She knew her mother wasn’t happy when Chloe had told her she liked girls, but she thought that she at least didn’t mind it. Apparently not.

And then Chloe hears the words that she never thought she’d ever hear from her mom. She tells her she has an hour to pack.

She doesn’t even give Chloe time to say goodbye to her father.

//

Chloe packs in twenty minutes and she doesn’t say goodbye to her mother on her way out.

She slams the front door and throws her two suitcases into the trunk of her car. Her heart races as she grips the steering wheel as tight as she can, and she makes it to Beca’s in a record time of four minutes.

She approaches the small broken-down bungalow, and normally she’s grinning when she’s making her way up to the door, excited to see Beca without worrying about anyone catching them. Not today though.

Beca answers the door with a shocked face, and her hand is on Chloe’s cheek as she pulls her inside. She’s not sure where Beca’s dad is but she doesn’t ask. She lets Beca guide her to the kitchen, and Chloe hadn’t noticed that her cheek is bleeding from where her mother’s ring had struck her.

She lets Beca clean the cut, and her bottom lip trembles with every soft touch on her cheek. Beca is gentle when she loves and she’s gentle when she worries, and Chloe is sad that the world has turned Beca so cold when she’s such a loving person.

“Sorry,” Beca whispers when Chloe winces. “I’m sorry,” she repeats.

Beca’s thumb strokes over her lip gently. The touch is soft, and caring, and it just makes Chloe want to cry even more. And she wonders how the hell she managed to get Beca to stay all this time. How she managed to get this girl to like her – to _love_ her.

Those are the questions she asks herself every day, and yes, some days she’s still convinced that this is all one big dream. But then with one touch from Beca, be it a brush of her hand over her thigh, or a small kiss on the cheek, it reminds Chloe that she’s here, and this is real, and she’s not going anywhere.

That fact alone is enough to bring down Chloe’s walls. She lunges forward and wraps her arms around Beca’s back as she sobs, burying her head in her neck as she hugs her tightly.

“I’m here,” Beca whispers. “It’s okay.” She faintly hears Chloe mumbling something, but the sound is muffled due to her having her mouth pressed against her shoulder. “Chlo, hey. I can’t hear you. What’d you say?”

Chloe pulls back to look her in the eyes. “I don’t want you to leave me.”

Beca’s eyes soften and she smiles, tucking Chloe’s hair behind her ear. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’re going to New York.”

Beca’s smile falters. She knew this conversation was coming. It’s the first time they’ve talked about it since Beca had brought it up that day. She never thought they’d be talking about it due to _these_ circumstances though.

Chloe has tears on her cheeks, and Beca is wiping them away – careful not to touch the cut – and Chloe thinks that Beca is the best thing that’s ever happened to her.

“Chlo–”

“–Can I come with you?” Chloe asks, voice broken and tired, before Beca can say anything else. She sees the confusion in Beca’s eyes. The confusion turns to recognition, and then to doubt, and then to hesitation.

Then to hope.

“You’re going to California.”

“I doubt my parents will pay for me to go now,” Chloe whispers with a bitter laugh. “My mom kicked me out. She’s probably already cancelled my credit cards.”

The hope turns to anger.

Beca looks down at Chloe’s lips, licking her own before looking into Chloe’s eyes again.

“Are you sure?” Beca asks. Chloe just nods and rolls her lips. “I’m giving you an out,” Beca whispers. “Please, if you’re not sure about us then–”

“I’d go anywhere with you.” Chloe holds Beca’s face in her hands.

“I love you,” Chloe says, kissing Beca gently on the lips.  
“I can’t stand not being with you,” Chloe says, wiping a tear away.  
“You’re my best friend and I’m _so_ in love with you,” Chloe says, holding Beca’s head in her hands.

Beca thinks about Chloe’s back yard. How it’s only three quarters of the way done and one of the panels on the fence is only half-painted and she left the lawn mower in the middle of the grass and she thinks she left her gloves on the bench.

She thinks about Mrs. Beale’s face when she caught them. How hurt and angry and different she looked. How scared Chloe looked before Beca left. She thinks about what would have happened if she refused to leave. Maybe Beca would have the cut on her cheek instead of Chloe. Oh, how she wishes she was the one who had been hit.

She thinks about Mr. Beale, and if he knows. If he’d have the same reaction as Chloe’s mother. Then she thinks about her own dad and the day he found out she liked girls too. She remembers the hurt in his eyes, and how ever since then, he’s been so distant and hard with her. He hadn’t hit her but God, she still felt the pain of a parent disowning her.

She knows he cares about her but only because he _has_ to.

“Chloe, I…” she pauses, because she’s not sure what she wants to say. She knows she wants Chloe with her, but she’s not sure what she _wants_. “Are you sure? Because I… I don’t know what to do.”

“Becs–”

“–I don’t know what to do,” she repeats, forehead resting against Chloe’s. “I talk about the future as if I expect to have one but I don’t. I never have. Chloe, I…”

“It’s okay.” Chloe strokes her face.

“I never expected to live this long and now that I’m here I have no… fucking clue what I’m doing.”

“We can work it out together,” Chloe says, voice full of hope. “We can be _that_ couple. We can live in a shitty apartment together and I’ll get a job at a coffee shop and you’ll write as many books as you want and maybe I’ll sell some of my paintings and eventually open up a gallery and…” she takes a breath, “and we’re not gonna be living a luxurious life but we’ll be together and that’s all I want.”

She’s leaving for New York in eighteen days. An extra eighteen days in New York with Chloe Beale sounds perfect.

“I love you,” Beca simply says.

She loves Chloe and Chloe loves her back, and that’s all that matters in this moment.

//

Chloe takes a deep breath, her hands gripping the steering wheel as she looks out at the building in front of her.

“Just do it,” she tells herself. “You need this. You and Beca need this.”

She takes her seatbelt off, reaching up to pull the rear-view mirror towards her as she checks to see if she looks okay. She’s managed to cover her cut from yesterday with makeup, but she still puts her hair over it just in case anybody asks about it.

She feels like everyone is staring at her as she walks inside, joining the line of people already waiting. She’s already zoned out by the time she’s due to go next.

“Miss?”

She looks up at the source, seeing a middle-aged woman in purple glasses waiting behind a pane of glass.

“Hi,” Chloe says, pulling her purse out and giving the woman her card. “I’d like to open a new account and transfer everything over.”

The woman looks at her suspiciously, as if she’s waiting for Chloe to pull a gun out and rob the bank, but she turns to her computer and types something in and then she’s asking Chloe for her ID and to answer a few other questions. Before Chloe knows it, she’s owning a bank that her parents definitely won’t be able to access, and she feels like screaming with happiness.

She returns to Beca with a bright smile, and Beca’s asking her if she did it and Chloe’s wrapping her arms and legs around Beca and telling her that she’s _free_ , and it feels amazing. After years of her parents checking her bank statements and asking her what she’s been buying, and taking her credit card off of her because she’s spending too much money on unnecessary things, this feels like the first day of the rest of her life.

//

Chloe stretches her head to look up at the house she’s pulling up in front of to see if anybody is home. She doesn’t expect them to be home because they work all day, but the thought of them coming back during the day like they sometimes do scares the absolute shit out of her.

She’s quick though, and she writes a note and leaves it under one of the windscreen wipers on her–on _their_ car.

 ** _Thank you for the past 18 years._** It reads in rushed, cursive handwriting.

As much as she wants to sell her car for extra cash, she knows that it’s not hers to sell, and she knows that she’d feel bad about it for the rest of her life if she did.

She leaves the car on the drive and sets off walking back to Beca’s.

//

It takes ten minutes for Chloe to work up the courage to call Aubrey from Beca’s phone. After her mother had kicked her out, she had thrown her phone out of the car window in frustration, so until she gets a new phone, Beca has let her borrow hers.

Of course, Chloe had snooped through Beca’s phone the moment she gave her it, in hopes of finding something juicy to tease her for, but the only thing she’d found was that Beca has a picture of her as her lockscreen and a playlist of cheesy songs titled ‘Chlo’.

She taps on the table as she waits for Aubrey to answer, but the greeting never comes.

“No answer?”

Chloe looks behind her as Beca walks into the kitchen, placing a glass of water on the table in front of Chloe.

She shakes her head, thanking Beca as she continues to tap on the table.

“I left my dad a note. Maybe you could write to her instead. You know, the old fashioned way.”

Chloe mulls it over for a moment. Aubrey is her best friend and even though they haven’t seen much of each other this summer, they’ll still be friends at the end of it, and she doesn’t want Aubrey to think she’s disappeared off the face of the earth.

Beca hands her a piece of lined paper and a pencil, and Chloe looks up at her.

“You don’t have to but just in case,” Beca says, handing her an envelope.

 ** _Aubrey_** , she writes.

**_It’s Chloe. You’re probably a bit weirded out that I’ve sent you a letter instead of just texting or calling you. It’s not like we’re in the 1800’s, right? I did try calling you from ~~Be~~ somebody’s phone but you didn’t answer._ **

**_There’s a lot about me that you don’t know. Like how my favorite color is actually green, not pink, and I don’t have a favorite book because there’s too many in the world to pick one favorite, and my middle name isn’t actually Anne._ **

**_And you don’t know that I’ve been dating someone this summer, either. Someone who you don’t like. Which doesn’t really narrow it down because there are a lot of people you don’t like, but anyway. We’re dating, and we’re in love. And because of this, my mom kicked me out. Because she found me with this person. So I’m starting over from the beginning._ **

**_You’re my best friend and I trust you not to tell anybody but Stacie about this letter. I just needed to tell you because I don’t want either of you worrying about me. I’m okay. Me and ~~B~~ this person are moving in together. I can’t tell you who it is or where we’re moving because I’ll be screwed if this letter falls into the wrong hands. I’ll write to you more when we get there, though, and I’ll call you when I manage to get a phone._ **

**_Please don’t hate me. We’ll see each other again._ **

**_Chloe._ **

**_P.s. I don’t have a middle name._ **

She wipes a tear away, folding the piece of paper and putting it into the envelope before writing Aubrey’s name and address on it.

“Ready?” Beca asks her.

“This is harder than I thought it would be,” Chloe whispers, and Beca understands.

Chloe’s lived in Barden her whole life. Chloe’s depended on her parents her whole life, and yes, she’s mad at them for kicking her out, but she’s scared. Because she’s never had to provide for herself before. She’s always relied on her parents or her friends, and Chloe was right. She’s starting over from the beginning.

“I know,” Beca says. “But we’re in this together.”

Chloe nods, smiles, and takes Beca’s hand.

//

" _Okay, it's 3:17 AM. You're tuned in with your main man Tommy Inglethorpe. This next song's gonna keep you warm on a cold, cold night. So if you don't got a lover, just close your eyes. And listen, to Honne._ "

Beca turns the volume up a little, looking beside her at Chloe’s sleeping form before looking back out at the road ahead.

Their things are packed in suitcases and small boxes in the backseat. They haven’t packed much but in less than 10 hours, they’ll be moving into a small apartment in Brooklyn that Chloe had managed to put a deposit down for last minute, and Beca feels alive as the cool breeze blows through the window.

They’ve been on the road for four hours, and Chloe has been asleep for two of those, after the two of them had sang through the whole of Beca’s Broadway playlist on her phone. Now, Beca’s starting to get a little tired as she pulls onto the interstate and opens the window a few inches more so the breeze can wake her up a little.

The noise of the wind wakes Chloe up though, and Beca’s hand is on her knee telling her that she’s sorry and to go back to sleep, but Chloe’s looking out of the window with squinted eyes at the signs they’re passing to see where exactly they are.

“North Carolina,” Beca says, and Chloe looks at her. “We’re just passing Salisbury.”

Chloe yawns, sitting up before taking her bottle of water out of the cup holder beside them.

They agree to get coffee before Chloe drives some more until it’s night. She drives for another four hours through Virginia until they stop at a small Motel in Stafford before they have drive the rest of the way up to Brooklyn tomorrow.

The Motel isn’t the best but it’s cheap and close and they’ll be leaving first thing in the morning anyway. They leave most of their belongings in the truck, thankful that they’re parked right outside their room, and only take in the essentials to get dressed and washed with.

Beca takes a quick shower first, and she puts Netflix on when it’s Chloe’s turn to take one, waiting for her in bed so they can watch a movie before going to sleep.

In any other circumstance, Beca wouldn’t really want to watch a movie. It’s not that she hates them, she just gets bored easily and a lot of them are easy to predict. Plus, they’re not realistic, and sometimes the acting in them makes her cringe. And okay, maybe she hates them.

But when Chloe bounces down onto the bed, wet hair whipping the pillow as she asks Beca what they’re watching, Beca can’t find it in herself to care about the fact that she’d rather do anything else than watch a movie. Because Chloe is her whole life right now in this moment and she looks so happy, damp hair and all, and Beca would be evil to take that away from her.

They settle on a small indie movie with Ryan Gosling that Beca has never heard of, and if they happen to have sex halfway through the movie then that’s totally not Beca’s fault.

//

Their new apartment is small and the only furniture they have is a sofa and a mattress, but Chloe makes it look like home and Beca’s never felt as proud in her life, as the two of them sit side by side eating Chinese food watching a movie on Beca’s laptop.

There are boxes everywhere and Beca is using one of them as a chair and two of them as a desk, but Chloe has put up fairy lights and a few posters here and there and it’s _home_.

“We should go grocery shopping tomorrow,” Chloe says, noodles in her mouth, and if it was anybody else, Beca would think it’s disgusting. But this is Chloe and she’s never been more in love.

She agrees with a nod of her head as she watches the screen. She has no idea what’s happening because Chloe chose to show her Inception, of all movies, and she’d got lost around the time Leonardo DiCaprio picked up his glass of wine and started to talk about safes and dreams and secrets.

“What the fuck is happening?” Beca asks.

“I have no idea.”

Beca laughs, looking at Chloe. “You said you’ve seen this movie twice.”

“Doesn’t mean I know what the hell is going on.”

They both laugh, and Beca reaches out to wipe a bit of sauce from the corner of Chloe’s mouth.

“I love you,” Chloe says, when Beca pulls her hand away to go back to eating her own food, and Beca smiles as she leans in to quickly kiss Chloe.

“I love you too, you weirdo.”

//

Chloe manages to find a job not far from their apartment.

It’s her first job, and it’s as a waitress at a small Thai restaurant, and it pays good money and the people who eat there seem to tip well.

Beca gets a job at a movie theater, of all places, as she finishes the rest of her book and looks for publishers online. And it feels like she’s stopped at a dead-end for the most part of the rest of the year, but when Christmas rolls around, she finally gets the call.

She’s sitting on a park bench with her laptop on her knees, looking out at the people rushing by in front of her when she feels her phone vibrate in her pocket.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is this Miss Beca Mitchell?”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

She fully expects it to be someone trying to sell her something or a scammer trying to get her personal details. What she doesn’t expect is for this person to tell her that his name is Eric Greenwood and he’s a literary agent from Writer’s House who has read her manuscript and wants to schedule a meeting with her.

“You…what? You’re–you read my manuscript?”

She remembers sending it off weeks ago, after Chloe had told her to “just go for it” and “what’s the worst that could happen?”

“Beca Mitchell,” the man says, as if testing his name on his tongue. “You’re nineteen?”

“Yeah, I’m nineteen.”

“And you’re in New York?”

“Yeah I moved here with my–I moved here not long ago.”

“Great. Are you free on Monday to see me?”

“That’s–yeah, I can see you on Monday. I would be _stoked_ to see you on Monday. Sorry, I don’t say stoked. I don’t say stuff like that. I’m pretty cool. You’re gonna like me.” She winces. “That was bad too, I’m sorry.”

Mr. Greenwood laughs though, telling her that he’ll update her on where to meet, and she’s grinning as she hangs up the phone, grabbing her laptop and standing up.

“What?!” she yells, scaring a few pigeons beside her.

//

Beca loves everything about Chloe Beale.

She loves that she doesn’t know how to whistle and that she knows every word to any Hanson song at the drop of a hat. She loves how Chloe doesn’t pressure her to do anything, and she loves that Chloe’s her number one fan. Whether it’s cheering Beca on to finish her book, or whether she’s telling her that her new found passion in photography is something to be proud of.

But what she loves most is how much Chloe loves her. How far they’ve come together, from the small town of Barden, they’ve managed to grow into something beautiful in New York City. And Beca still wakes up some days, expecting to hear her father banging pots around in the kitchen. Expecting to have spent the night with Luke, high off of whatever drug she could afford.

But Beca wakes up to Chloe Beale every day and she remembers where they are and what they’ve achieved and she wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

When she gets a call from her agent telling her that her book has reached number one, the first thing she does is cry. The second thing she does is thank him when he tells her he’s managed to get her a few readings at several bookstores around New York. The third thing she does is hold a pillow up to her face and screams.

The last thing she does is make dinner for Chloe.

She waits impatiently at the kitchen table, checking her phone for the time every minute, and only lets herself breathe properly when she hears the front door open.

“I’m home!”

Beca rushes to the front door to greet Chloe, surprising her when she immediately pins her against the wall to kiss her.

It’s quick but deep, and Beca’s hands are running through Chloe’s hair and Chloe drops her coat on the floor, one shoe on and one off, and Beca is gone before she can ask her what’s happening.

“Wow,” Chloe breathes out, flustered, and Beca is grinning. “What’s that smile for?”

“Oh, nothing,” Beca says nonchalantly, leaning against the wall as Chloe picks her coat up to hang it on the coat rack. “Just that you’re looking at a New York Times Bestselling Author.”

Chloe smiles, and then she frowns as if she just realized what Beca had said, and then she’s smiling again as she holds both hands up, ready to hug Beca. “What the hell? Are you serious?”

Beca nods excitedly, and Chloe is pulling her into a tight hug, telling her that she’s so proud of her and she always believed in her.

It’s surreal.

//

“She felt the wave crash over her,” Beca reads out from the podium she’s standing behind. “She felt them crash over her and she wanted to stay under the water but something was pushing her up. Maybe it was hope. Maybe it was fate. Or maybe it was the life vest she had around her torso.”

She clears her throat and looks up, smiling nervously at the crowd in front of her in the bookstore. “Either way,” she continues, “there was no stopping how she rose to the surface and gasped for air. The salt water burned at her throat and her eyes were stinging but she was very much aware of her surroundings. Something she hadn’t felt in years.

“When she opened her eyes, the world was beautiful. The water was glistening, the sun was bright and blinding, and the air smelled like being alive. For a sweet moment she felt like maybe she’d died and gone to heaven. Because looking over to the shore, she saw her. The girl was there again. The girl who she’d only seen in her dreams and her drug-induced state over the past few years. The girl who she’s sure was just a mirage.

She was ethereal. She was far away but she was beautiful, there was no denying that. And then another wave hit her and when she resurfaced the girl standing on the shore was gone; leaving behind nothing but the memory of her once again.”

Beca pauses, not expecting the round of applause that follows after, and she looks up to see the hundreds of people stood and sat in front of her, listening to her read _her_ book.

The old lady in the front row holding hands with her husband. The teenager sitting in the third row with a pretty Asian girl sat next to her. The reporter at the back with a camera and microphone. The little girl sitting on her father’s shoulders to the side.

And of course, Chloe Beale.

Her favorite critic of all.

With minimal difficulty, she manages to get through the rest of the section that she had been told to read, and it isn’t long before the room is applauding, clapping and cheering for her, Beca Mitchell.

Number one best-selling author Beca Mitchell.

Her agent introduces her to some people and she’s looking at Chloe, beckoning her over, and basking in the beauty that is the love of her life.

“Eric,” Beca says, happy to be able to finally introduce them. “This is my girlfriend, Chloe. Chloe, this is… everybody.”

Beca stands back as Chloe shakes hands with Eric and the rest of the people surrounding her, and she looks around the bookstore at the hundreds of people that had shown up to listen to her, and the people who had come to get _her_ book signed, and there’s nothing else in the world that has made her happier than in this moment.

She thinks about her mom, and if she'd be proud of her. And she remembers the look on Chloe's face when Chloe had told her the other day that her mom is probably looking down at her thinking "that's my girl" and she believes with her whole heart that it's true.

Beca drives them back to their apartment, Chloe in the passenger seat singing along to Lorde’s new album. Beca’s wrists are draped over the steering wheel, and Chloe’s love reverberates around the whole of New York City as she sings and Beca’s feels more at home than she’s ever been in her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we’re here. The end of the road. I hope you all liked this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. I know it’s angsty and dark at some parts, but hopefully the fluff and happy ending outweighed it.
> 
> P.s. the scenes with Beca and her book were definitely based off of jamie wellerstein from the last five years.


End file.
